In 2025, a Shanghai company completed the first clinical transfusion of lab-grown platelets and announced plans for nationwide production within five years. Meanwhile, a Boston company pursuing the same breakthrough raised over $100 million but hasn’t reached commercial scale. The difference wasn’t the science—it was the infrastructure connecting research to production.

This gap reveals the central challenge facing American biomanufacturing: we excel at innovation but struggle to scale it. For economic and workforce developers, this challenge represents an enormous opportunity.

The Scale of the Opportunity

The biomanufacturing sector is experiencing explosive growth. The U.S. synthetic biology market alone stands at $16.4 billion—an order of magnitude larger than any competitor. Federal commitment is substantial and growing: $2 billion through the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative, $1 billion from the Department of Defense, plus additional funding from DOE, USDA, and Manufacturing Innovation Institutes like BioMADE.

This isn’t just federal money looking for a home. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects approximately 10,000 new biological technician openings annually. Massachusetts alone forecasts 38,000 net new biotech jobs by 2033. These are high-skill, high-wage positions that create multiplier effects throughout regional economies.

The Infrastructure Gap

Investment capital alone cannot build biomanufacturing capacity. What’s required is the infrastructure that bridges laboratory research and commercial production.

China has built that bridge through its Manufacturing Innovation Centers, establishing more than 2,400 pilot test platforms by 2024. These platforms provide the physical infrastructure and technical capabilities needed to scale from bench to pilot to commercial manufacturing.

The United States has begun developing similar capacity through MIIs like BioMADE, but we need more—strategically distributed to anchor resilient regional biomanufacturing clusters.

What Makes Regions Competitive

The most successful biomanufacturing regions combine four elements:

Specialized workforce pipelines: Training programs directly connected to industry needs, from community college certifications to specialized technical programs. This isn’t generic STEM education—it’s job-ready skills for bioreactor operation, quality control, and process development.

Production infrastructure: Pilot-scale facilities where companies can test and refine processes before committing to full commercial production. These “biofoundries” dramatically reduce the risk and cost of scaling.

Coordinated incentives: Tax structures, regulatory support, and purchasing agreements that make domestic production economically viable. Long-term federal purchasing commitments paired with state-level support create the certainty manufacturers need.

Capital access: Networks connecting startups and scaling companies to both venture capital and manufacturing partners. The U.S. leads globally in biotech venture funding, but that capital needs places to deploy productively.

North Carolina: A Template for Success

Since 2018, nearly 30 life sciences companies have invested $8.9 billion in the Research Triangle and pledged to create nearly 7,000 new jobs. The region is now ranked the number one biomanufacturing market in the country. Major investments include:

• Biogen: $2 billion investment in Research Triangle Park, adding to approximately $10 billion invested in its North Carolina footprint.
• Novo Nordisk: Nearly $6 billion over three decades, expanding nine times to employ more than 2,000 workers, and announced an additional $4.1 billion investment in 2023.
• Eli Lilly: invested $474 million in 2020, followed by a $1 billion expansion in 2022 and $450 million in 2023.

What made this possible was a complete ecosystem: the NC Community College System’s BioNetwork connects thirteen community colleges offering BioWork certification; specialized facilities like NC State’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center provide hands-on training in simulated-GMP labs; Research Triangle Park hosts over 300 life science companies with specialized biomanufacturing facilities; and organizations like the North Carolina Biotechnology Center provide strategic support connecting companies with resources.

The result is a reinforcing cycle: training programs produce workers for existing facilities, which attracts more companies, which creates demand for more trained workers, which justifies expansion of training infrastructure.

The Urgency

Without coordinated regional action, companies will continue locating production capacity where the complete ecosystem exists—increasingly, that means overseas. When a biotech startup raises capital in Boston but builds its production facility in Shanghai, the high-wage manufacturing jobs, the workforce multiplier effects, and the strategic capacity all flow elsewhere.

The window for building domestic capacity is narrowing. Federal funding is available now. Industry demand is accelerating. But translating national priorities into regional manufacturing capacity requires execution at the state and local level.

A Call to Action

If you’re an economic development leader:

• Assess your region’s biomanufacturing assets and gaps
• Identify opportunities to partner with MIIs like BioMADE
• Connect with federal funding sources (NBBIA, DOD, DOE programs)
• Build coalitions with regional partners to create complete ecosystems

If you’re a workforce development leader:

• Engage directly with biomanufacturing companies about specific skill needs
• Partner with community colleges to design certification programs
• Create pathways from training to employment with committed hiring partners
• Connect with Manufacturing Innovation Institutes to understand industry standards

For both:

• Study successful models like North Carolina’s Research Triangle
• Coordinate across jurisdictions—biomanufacturing clusters often span multiple counties or states
• Think long-term: building capacity takes sustained commitment, not one-time initiatives
• Connect with peer regions to share best practices and avoid duplicating efforts

The United States built its biomanufacturing leadership through innovation. Maintaining it requires something different: the patient, coordinated work of building the infrastructure and training the workforce that turns breakthrough science into manufactured products.

Federal strategy has created the opportunity. Regional execution will determine the outcome. The question isn’t whether biomanufacturing capacity will be built—it’s where. Make sure your region is ready to compete for it.