Spotlighting the North Carolina Research Triangle's Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing and Innovation Hub

This event is co-hosted with Duke University and is hosted onsite at the Rubenstein Great Hall at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center at 2080 Duke University Road, Durham, NC.

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The CSIS Renewing American Innovation program and Duke University hosted a half-day symposium of expert panels on the global importance of the North Carolina Research Triangle region for biotechnology innovation and biopharmaceutical manufacturing and workforce development. To explore the sources of this success and the opportunities ahead, the CSIS Renewing American Innovation program and Duke University convened leaders from government, universities, the venture community, and the biopharmaceutical industry to analyze why the region stands out as an encouraging example of how place-based innovation ecosystems can generate discovery, attract investment, create high-quality jobs, and strengthen American leadership in the life sciences.

Across opening keynotes and four expert panels, participants highlighted a powerful theme: thriving innovation ecosystems are built through mutually reinforcing networks. Basic research generates discoveries; intellectual property helps make those discoveries investable; capital and commercialization capabilities move them toward the market; clinical and regulatory capacity validate them; manufacturing anchors production and know-how; and talent, infrastructure, and community quality help the entire system scale. Viewed through this lens, North Carolina is more than a successful regional cluster; it is a compelling model for how the United States can strengthen globally competitive bioscience hubs through sustained collaboration, smart investment, strong institutions, and supportive policy.

Fireside Chat: Congresswoman Deborah Ross

Representative Deborah Ross, who represents North Carolina’s 2nd congressional district, framed North Carolina’s long-term economic strength as the result of a complete innovation system, not simply its success in attracting manufacturing investment. In conversation with CSIS senior adviser and former NIST director Walter Copan, she emphasized that the state’s competitiveness depends on sustaining the full pathway from fundamental research and talent development to commercialization, manufacturing, and market adoption.

Federal R&D investment, strong universities, intellectual property protections, patient capital, technically capable regulators, and access to international talent all contribute to this system. Ross cautioned that manufacturing growth cannot be separated from continued investment in innovation: without a pipeline of new discoveries, patents, products, and companies, today’s manufacturing advantages can erode as technologies mature and global competitors expand their capabilities. She also stressed that strong IP protections help attract the private capital needed to move federally funded discoveries toward commercialization.

More broadly, Ross encouraged universities to better quantify and communicate their role as regional economic engines, including their contributions to jobs, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and community prosperity. Her remarks underscored a central theme of the workshop: North Carolina’s leadership in the life sciences rests on continued investment across the entire research-to-market pipeline.

Panel 1: Building a World-Class Biopharmaceutical Innovation Ecosystem

Moderated by Chan Harjivan, CSIS senior technical expert and Duke-Margolis Center visiting fellow, the first panel featured Mike Carnes, vice president for emerging company development at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center; Robin L. Rasor, associate vice president for translation and commercialization at Duke Translation & Commercialization; and Jesse Jur, senior director for innovation ecosystems and strategic initiatives at First Flight Venture Center. Together, they highlighted the impressive scale and momentum of North Carolina’s bio-innovation ecosystem while underscoring the opportunity to translate that strength into greater company growth, product development, and investment.

The state is home to 860 life-sciences companies and 76,000 life-sciences employees, including more than 490 R&D companies and 13,800 R&D workers. Its research base is equally strong: five R1 universities, six medical schools, four pharmacy schools, and three comprehensive cancer centers. These institutions are supported by more than $1.7 billion in FY2025 NIH funding across 2,567 awards. The Research Triangle is especially well positioned, accounting for roughly 80 percent of the state’s preclinical companies and 85 percent of its clinical-stage biopharma firms. This concentration gives North Carolina a powerful platform for scaling companies, advancing products, and attracting investment.

Panelists also pointed to the region’s cost advantages, including 11.9 million square feet of life-sciences inventory, laboratory rents below those in Boston, the Bay Area, and San Diego, and average biotech R&D wages below those in the largest coastal clusters. These advantages can extend startup runway and make the region especially attractive for growing firms. To build on this momentum, panelists emphasized the importance of stronger “capital highways” linking North Carolina companies to national investors, strategic partners, and markets. The state’s more than $1.6 billion in 2025 life-sciences venture investment and several $100 million-plus clinical-stage financings demonstrate that outside capital is already responding to the quality of North Carolina’s opportunities.

Panel 2: From Discovery to Commercialization—Research, IP, and Investment Across the Pipeline

Moderated by Walter Copan, CSIS senior adviser and former director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the second panel featured David Ridley, professor of the practice of business, economics, and public policy at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; Norman “Ned” Sharpless, co-founder and managing director of Jupiter BioVentures and former director of the National Cancer Institute; Jennifer Lodge, vice president for research and innovation at Duke Research & Innovation; Stephen J. Susalka, CEO of AUTM; and Daniel Dardani, director of physical sciences and digital innovations licensing and corporate alliances at Duke Translation & Commercialization and AUTM chair-elect. The panel focused on the path from discovery to commercialization and the tools that help transform strong science into investable product opportunities.

Panelists described technology transfer as the process of evaluating inventions, protecting them through intellectual property, and commercializing them through licensing or startup formation. They emphasized that universities can create significant value by generating the technical, market, and translational evidence needed to make early discoveries actionable for companies, startups, and investors. AUTM CEO Stephen J. Susalka connected research intensity directly to invention output, noting that more research creates more “shots on goal.” Duke technology-transfer leaders emphasized that impact—not licensing income alone—should remain the primary objective. Panelists also discussed how institutions can better align incentives with commercialization. Faculty often want their research to make a real-world difference, and promotion and tenure systems can do more to recognize invention, patenting, startup formation, and translational work as important forms of impact. Strong IP protection was presented as a key enabler because it gives investors the confidence to support early-stage inventions.

At the same time, panelists noted that policy tools can expand innovation where commercial incentives alone may be insufficient. Duke professor David Ridley’s discussion of priority review vouchers and accelerated approval illustrated how policy can support progress on rare diseases, neglected diseases, and other areas with high patient need. Former FDA commissioner Ned Sharpless added that decades of NIH and NCI basic-science investment are now creating major therapeutic opportunities, especially in oncology.

Taken together, the panel’s message was that North Carolina already has strong research, scientific talent, invention generation, and startup activity, and it has a clear opportunity to strengthen the middle of the pipeline through translational funding, de-risking, entrepreneurial talent, patient capital, regulatory pathways, and incentives that help promising discoveries reach industry and patients.

Panel 3: Building the Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Workforce

Moderated by Sujai Shivakumar, director and senior fellow of Renewing American Innovation at CSIS, the third panel featured Mary E. Klotman, executive vice president for health affairs at Duke University, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, and chief academic officer of Duke Health; Andrew Gardner, associate vice president for workforce strategies at the North Carolina Community College System; Alex Murray, vice president and general manager of pharmaceutical site operations at Biogen; and W. Kevin McLaughlin, vice president of government affairs at Duke Energy.

The panel presented workforce development as one of North Carolina’s most important strengths and a central pillar of its innovation infrastructure. The discussion covered the full talent continuum, from scientists, engineers, and graduate researchers to technicians, operators, line workers, and the educators who train them. Academic leaders emphasized the value of sustained research support in developing future talent, noting that graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are both trainees and essential contributors to federally funded science. International talent also remains an important asset for biomedical research and corporate R&D. Panelists viewed these dynamics as an opportunity for universities, industry, and policymakers to work together to sustain and expand the region’s biomedical workforce. Rather than treating workforce development as something that begins after a company arrives, the discussion emphasized talent development as a proactive economic-development strategy and a long-term source of regional advantage.

Industry and workforce-development leaders reinforced the breadth of this opportunity. Biogen’s Alex Murray emphasized that companies need a continuum of talent, not simply more PhDs. In technical-development functions, employees bridge molecule discovery and commercial production by determining how a therapy can be produced, scaled, and manufactured reliably. Murray highlighted continuous learning and upskilling as ways companies can build advanced capabilities throughout an employee’s career, especially when they maintain strong relationships with universities, departments, and faculty. Andrew Gardner of the North Carolina Community College System described community colleges as a major asset in the state’s economic-development proposition. The system can respond directly to employer demand through customized training, apprenticeships, credentials, transfer pathways, and upskilling, while helping students see clear routes into high-value careers. Duke Energy’s Kevin McLaughlin offered a practical example through the company’s investment in community-college line-worker programs, showing how employers can proactively build talent pipelines when conventional recruiting is insufficient. He also emphasized the importance of exposing students earlier to rewarding technical careers and updating perceptions of skilled work. Taken together, the discussion showed that workforce availability, training capacity, power, and infrastructure can work together as enabling strengths for advanced manufacturing growth.

Panel 4: Industry Perspectives on Sustaining U.S. Biopharmaceutical Leadership

Moderated by Sujai Shivakumar, director and senior fellow of Renewing American Innovation at CSIS, the final panel featured North Carolina Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley; Anne Showalter, U.S. site director for GSK in Zebulon; Mark McClellan, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and director of the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy; and Doug Edgeton, president and CEO of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

The panel emphasized the strong set of capabilities that help North Carolina sustain and expand biopharmaceutical leadership. Panelists identified speed to market as a central requirement. Companies need talent, ready sites, reliable power, water and wastewater capacity, predictable permitting, supply-chain access, and training partners that can move on the same timeline as major investments. North Carolina’s advantage lies in its ability to assemble these capabilities collaboratively across the Department of Commerce, utilities, community colleges, universities, sector organizations, and local partners. Panelists also highlighted the growing importance of quality-of-life factors—housing, healthcare, childcare, infrastructure, and community strength—in attracting companies and workers. These conditions can make the state an even more compelling location for advanced manufacturing growth. At the same time, panelists emphasized that manufacturing strength is most durable when connected to continued research, product development, and innovation. For North Carolina, the opportunity is not only to recruit factories but also to compete globally for larger and more valuable portions of the biomedical value chain.

North Carolina Secretary of Commerce Lee Lilley underscored this point, noting that talent, infrastructure, permitting, and coordinated public-sector support are decisive factors in winning advanced-manufacturing investment. He also highlighted the One North Carolina Small Business Program as an example of a highly leveraged state investment in innovation and argued for sustained public resources for talent, infrastructure, and communities.

Other industry leaders broadened the discussion to the full set of opportunities that can support U.S. biopharmaceutical leadership. GSK’s Anne Showalter argued that North Carolina succeeds when scientific innovation, advanced manufacturing, and digital transformation operate together. GSK’s expanding U.S. and North Carolina manufacturing footprint illustrates the state’s importance as both a headquarters and production location. For future investment, she identified talent, scientific innovation, and a business- and industry-friendly environment as areas where North Carolina performs especially well.

Former FDA commissioner Mark McClellan added that the state can compete beyond discovery and manufacturing by becoming a leader across the biomedical development and healthcare-delivery process, including advanced manufacturing, AI-enabled drug development, simulation, first-in-human studies, clinical trials, and innovative regulatory pathways. He connected biomedical innovation to healthcare affordability and access, emphasizing the opportunity to find faster, lower-cost ways to test, manufacture, and deliver therapies to patients. North Carolina’s combination of academic medicine, contract research organizations, industry, and public-private collaboration provides a strong platform for this work.

Closing the conversation, NC Biotech CEO Doug Edgeton described the state’s greatest differentiator as its long-standing, coordinated life-sciences ecosystem. Since the 1980s, NC Biotech has supported the pipeline from university research grants through early-stage company loans, recruitment, workforce development, and industry growth. Looking ahead, Edgeton highlighted opportunities in reshoring, advanced manufacturing, federal biotechnology initiatives, workforce programs, ag-tech, and defense-related biotechnology. His conclusion captured the workshop’s broader message: collaboration among state, university, industry, workforce, and community partners remains North Carolina’s “secret sauce” and a key to its future success.

Overall, the workshop highlighted the Research Triangle as a strong example of how regional innovation ecosystems can translate research excellence into manufacturing strength, job creation, and national competitiveness. Its success rests not on any single asset, but on a vibrant and mutually reinforcing network of universities, industry, capital, workforce institutions, infrastructure, and supportive public policy. For North Carolina—and for the United States more broadly—the central lesson is that biopharmaceutical leadership will depend on sustaining the full innovation pipeline: investing in discovery, protecting and commercializing ideas, developing talent at every level, building modern infrastructure, and maintaining the collaborative institutions that allow promising science to become products, companies, and economic growth.

Lessons from North Carolina: Key Workshop Takeaways

• Sustain the research base. Federal R&D funding, NIH and NCI investment, and university research capacity are the front end of the commercialization and manufacturing pipeline.
• Strengthen the middle of the pipeline. Promising discoveries need translational funding, de-risking, entrepreneurial talent, regulatory clarity, and patient capital to become investable products and companies.
• Protect and commercialize intellectual property. Strong IP protections help attract private investment and give firms the confidence to move early-stage discoveries toward market.
• Build stronger capital highways. North Carolina has critical mass, but continued growth depends on stronger connections to national investors, strategic partners, and later-stage capital.
• Treat workforce as infrastructure. Talent development must span PhDs, technicians, operators, line workers, community college pathways, apprenticeships, and continuous upskilling.
• Invest in enabling infrastructure. Sites, power, water, permitting, housing, healthcare, childcare, and community quality increasingly shape where advanced manufacturing grows.
• Compete across the full value chain. The goal is not only to attract manufacturing facilities but also to capture higher-value activities across discovery, development, trials, production, regulatory innovation, and delivery.
• Preserve the collaborative ecosystem. North Carolina’s advantage comes from sustained coordination among universities, industry, state agencies, community colleges, utilities, investors, and economic-development organizations.

This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.