The Boston-Cambridge region has overtaken San Francisco to take the top spot in a national ranking of biopharma clusters by Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. The Maryland-Virginia-Washington DC Biohealth Capital Region retained its third spot.
New York-New Jersey area came fourth, Philadelphia ranked fifth and North Carolina stood at eighth. GEN’s rankings since 2014 are based on funding from the National Institutes of Health funding, venture capital funding, patents, lab space and jobs.
Highest Funding
The top-ranked Boston-Cambridge region received the highest funding, both from NIH ($5.2 billion) and venture capital funding ($10.7 billion). It additionally had 61.9 million square feet of lab space, the highest in any region. The cluster’s feat came amid a setback of sorts, after the state Senate chopped a $1 billion measure called Mass Leads proposed by Gov. Maura Healy earlier this year.
San Francisco, ranked second, had the highest number of patents (28,690) and created the most number of jobs (156,454).
The Maryland-Virginia-Washington DC cluster got $4.3 billion in NIH funds, attracted $2.9 billion from venture firms, and a whopping 73,315 patents. With 35.9 million square feet of lab space, biotech companies in the region offered 136,164 jobs.
Upcoming Projects
“AstraZeneca is investing $300 million in a new manufacturing facility in Rockville, MD, with plans to create 150 new jobs when the site opens in 2026,” GEN said in a report alongside the rankings. “Across the state line, The University of Virginia is constructing the $300 million Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology in Charlottesville, named for chairman and CEO of PBM Capital and his wife.”
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Advertising / Media / Communications / Public Relations
Nevins & Associates
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
Venture Capital
Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
Citing data from Cushman & Wakefield, GEM said New York-New Jersey ranked a close second to Boston-Cambridge in NIH funding, winning 9,052 awards totaling just over $5 billion. It ranked second in jobs with 149,100.
Greater Philadelphia’s fifth ranking was earned largely because of its “sharp focus on cell and gene therapy,” GEM said. It helped the region catapult from ninth last year to fourth this year in venture capital, it added.
Eighth-ranked North Carolina was fifth in NIH funding, seventh in lab space and eighth in Patents. Citing real estate firm JLL called Raleigh-Durham the nation’s top biomanufacturing hub, citing the rich history of large-scale biomanufacturing at Research Triangle Park and outlying counties, a critical mass of workers, and R&D from university spinouts, GEN pointed out.
