The BioHealth Capital Region (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.) has successfully retained its position as the #3 biopharma cluster in the U.S. for 2024. This impressive ranking underscores the region’s ongoing strength in innovation and investment, highlighted by major expansions and investments from leading companies and institutions. Despite facing some challenges, the region continues to lead in patents, NIH funding, and lab space.
From
Alex Philippidis' remarks:
The BioHealth Capital Region has generated enough positive news to retain the number-three ranking it earned and celebrated last year. QIAGEN and Frederick County, MD, officials on July 12 announced completion of a 40,000-square-foot expansion of the company’s Frederick, MD, facility, creating a 75,000-square-foot site focused on next-generation sequencing, genomics, clinical healthcare, and forensics. 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. 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.
However, Gaithersburg, MD-basedEmergent BioSolutions in May announced plans to eliminate 300 jobs and about 85 vacant positions, plus shut down two Maryland sites—its Baltimore-Bayview Drug Substance manufacturing facility and its Rockville Drug Product facility. A third Emergent site, its Baltimore–Camden fill-finish facility, found a buyer in Taiwan-based Bora Pharmaceuticals, which bought the facility for $30 million in June.BioHealth Capital Region leads the nation in patents (73,315 families) thanks to IP powerhouses like Johns Hopkins University, the NIH, and National Library of Medicine. The Maryland-Virginia-D.C. region placed third in NIH funding (5,558 awards totaling $4.342 billion), jobs (136,164 according to BHCR based on data from labor market analytics firm Lightcast) and lab space with 35.9 million square feet according to BHCR based on data from JLL, whose figure includes the 9.2 million square feet of lab space within the NIH Campus headquarters in Bethesda, MD. In venture capital, BHCR cited PitchBook data showing the region climbing three notches year-over-year to fifth with $1.92 billion in 2023 and $1.01 billion in Q1–Q2 2024.
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