Beyond Boston: Regional Biotech Hubs Attract Billions in Manufacturing Investment

As pharmaceutical manufacturing capital expenditure reaches historic levels, a wave of state and federal initiatives is reshaping the geography of American biotech, pushing investment beyond traditional hubs like Boston and the Bay Area into emerging regional centers.

The recent investments "are great signals, especially at a time when we're tracking hundreds of billions of dollars in major CapEx [capital expenditure] from global pharma industry leaders," said Matt Gardner, sector president for life sciences at CBRE Enterprise, a global commercial real estate services and investment firm. "It's generational. I've never seen anything quite like this."

This year alone, Pennsylvania and New York launched new programs, while Kansas City and Central Virginia won federal funding aimed at strengthening their biotech industries. However, the government incentives have not been substantial enough on their own to sway major relocations. "Companies are not making decisions on where to build a new factory just on that," said Seth Martindale, a CBRE vice chairman and member of its site selection and incentives group. Instead, companies look for broader infrastructure factors like a strong workforce, labor market and education base.

Government Programs Seed Emerging Hubs

Government incentives and investments often "complement an existing industry base," Gardner said. Pennsylvania's new $125 million Innovate in PA 2.0 program will provide capital to startups, create a statewide clinical trial network and enhance the Commonwealth's innovation network. New York's fiscal 2027 budget likewise includes $65 million for its Bolstering Biotech Initiative, which will support venture investment, workforce development, performance-based commercialization grants and a statewide clinical trial consortium.

Public investments can also lay the groundwork for future hubs. The Richmond-Petersburg region was selected in July for $16 million through the EDA's Tech Hubs program, following a $1 million NSF Engines Development Award in 2024 and a $52.9 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge award in 2022.

"We're seeing a dramatic surge in large capital expenditure in Richmond, Virginia, so they clearly were preparing the ground there. They've got tremendous public-private partnership infrastructure. And now we're seeing the fruits of that with a number of major investments," Gardner said. "All these things have developed these ecosystems for innovation."

Major Pharma Commitments in Virginia

Eli Lilly查看公司主页 is among the major investors. The large pharma announced plans last year to build a $5 billion manufacturing facility for its emerging bioconjugate platform and monoclonal antibody portfolio just west of Richmond. AstraZeneca查看公司主页 is also investing in Virginia with a new $4.5 billion manufacturing facility in Albemarle County, about 80 miles outside Richmond.

Kansas City could be pharma's next target. The region just received a $38.1 million funding package for the Kansas City BioHub, including $33.5 million from the EDA's Tech Hubs program. Gardner said Kansas City has been working on a "formula that is designed to create some strengths in the ecosystem or harness some things that they've got as a base, and attract and create jobs around that."

Pharma's Shifting Frontiers

The growth of biotech hubs beyond Boston and the Bay Area signals a major shift in how pharma companies think about where to invest and build. About 20 years ago, pharma companies would set up their manufacturing facilities about an hour outside of these major research hubs, Gardner said. That pattern is changing.

"Some of the recent announcements are going to completely new locations," Gardner said. He cites places like Richmond, as well as Alabama, where the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub received a $44 million Commerce Department grant in January 2025. Less than a year later, Lilly announced plans to invest more than $6 billion in a manufacturing facility about 90 minutes away in Huntsville. Lilly said one of the reasons it chose the site is partly because of its proximity to the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, which supports workforce training and research.

That investment shows that pharma companies don't need to be an hour away from the Bay Area or Boston to "get smart people to their facilities anymore," Martindale said. The recent uptick in government investments also signals a public commitment to developing the infrastructure needed to bolster biotech's ongoing growth in emerging hubs — something Martindale believes is "actually more important than the money."

Lancaster County's Vaccine Heritage

While Greater Boston's biotech industry is suffering from layoffs and empty lab space, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is experiencing a life sciences building boom, propelled by an $800 million expansion from GSK查看公司主页. "We have a very strong and diverse manufacturing economy here. From an employment perspective, our economy is really driven by manufacturing [and] healthcare," said Ezra Rothman, president of the economic development organization EDC Lancaster County.

That agricultural heritage is why the region has been a vaccine manufacturer for more than a century and a half. In 1882, the Lancaster County Vaccine Farm began producing the smallpox vaccine, and today, GlaxoSmithKline查看公司主页 continues that tradition. "The GSK site, which has gone through a couple of owners, was a vaccine farm back in the day when vaccines were produced from animals," Rothman said.

GSK查看公司主页 is expanding its already substantial presence in Lancaster with an $800 million project that will include additional vaccine and other manufacturing facilities. GSK isn't alone. Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories (搜索)搜索该公司 is also planning to build out its biopharmaceutical product testing operations there.

While traditional biotech hubs like Greater Boston aren't likely to lose their dominance anytime soon — MassBio reported that Massachusetts biotech companies saw a nearly 14% increase in drug candidates in 2025, compared with 6.8% nationally — other regions are emerging as unlikely hotspots.

New Frontiers in Oklahoma City and Las Vegas

Oklahoma City is not only home to companies like Cytovance Biologics (搜索)搜索该词条, Wheeler Bio (搜索)搜索该词条 and CytoGrowth Solutions (搜索)搜索该词条, but the vice chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology has also called Oklahoma a "blueprint" for implementing public-private partnerships in biotech. The region is aiming to grow the biotech workforce from the ground up, bolstered by a $35 million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant in 2022 to the Oklahoma Biotech Innovation Cluster and the establishment of the nonprofit Oklahoma City Innovation District.

The University of Oklahoma Bioprocessing Core Facility aims to train advanced engineers and scientists and connect academia and industry. There's also the Oklahoma Biotech Innovation Cluster's own training program, BioTC, a short-term training program tailored to the specific needs of biotechnology facilities that awards scholarships to low-income people.

Las Vegas is thinking beyond the Vegas Strip by positioning itself as an up-and-coming biotech hub. It already counts biotechs like Heligenics (搜索)搜索该词条, GenBioPro (搜索)搜索该词条 and PharmaCyte Biotech (搜索)搜索该公司 among the companies with operations there. Earlier this year, Roseman University of Health Sciences launched Roseman Bioventures, a 120,000-square-foot life science incubator for startups and emerging companies, complete with lab space and research infrastructure, as well as access to regulatory guidance and connections to investors and industry partners.

"Las Vegas offers lower operating costs, access to talent and a growing support network for life sciences companies," Jeff Talbot, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies at Roseman University of Health Sciences, told BioPharm International.