Addressing analysts earlier this year, executives from Alexandria Real Estate Equities discussed some sobering trends facing biopharma as well as the industry’s enduring strengths, both of which pose challenges for the nation’s largest life sciences-focused real estate investment trust (REIT).
Joel S. Marcus, Alexandria’s executive chairman and founder, cited continuing high interest rates; potential restructuring of the NIH into fewer institutes and centers under director Jayanta (Jay) Bhattacharya, MD, PhD; the agency’s 15% cap on reimbursement for indirect costs such as research facilities and administrative expenses across all agency grants (stayed by a court challenge); the abrupt exit of several senior FDA administrators, one of which briefly triggered declines in cell and gene therapy stocks; and what Marcus termed the FDA’s need to cut regulations and accelerate reviews of applications—both among priorities of Commissioner Martin Makary, MD.
Yet Marcus also recalled that some of the strongest biotech companies have emerged during challenging economic times—Alnylam in 2002 (after the 2001 recession) and Moderna in 2010 (after the “Great Recession” of 2007-09).
“Remember, the biggest and most consequential investments and ultimately gains are made when investors and operators do the right thing at the worst time. And these are perceived by many people as the worst of times,” Marcus said.
While Marcus laid out challenges to the growth of regional biopharma hubs, his colleague Hallie Kuhn, Alexandria’s senior vice president of life science and capital markets, told analysts that despite the macroeconomic turbulence, “the fundamental thesis driving the life science industry and Alexandria remains firmly in place”:
- Addressing unmet medical need—Kuhn cited statistics showing how nine out of ten diseases have no approved therapies, and chronic conditions impact 129 million Americans—nearly 40% of the nation’s population—driving more than $4.5 trillion in annual healthcare costs.
- Continuing innovation—U.S.-headquartered companies account for 55% of global biopharmaceutical R&D investment and six out of every ten FDA-approved therapies.
- Enhancing national security—Kuhn cited Alexandria’s support for biopharma-focused efforts to bolster the nation’s security, from the work of the Bipartisan National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology to U.S. government efforts to promote more domestic manufacturing of drugs and tools.
“Biotechnology is key for the U.S. to remain dominant and secure future economic growth in a new era of global competition,” Kuhn asserted.
How well regions of the U.S. address the three pillars of growth cited by Kuhn can be seen in this latest edition of GEN’s annual A-List of its nationally cited top 10 U.S. biopharma cluster rankings, designed to show which regions are most competitive in attracting life sciences leaders, companies, and institutions. Over more than a decade, GEN has based its rankings on five criteria:
- Patents—Figures from the Patent Public Search database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, showing the number of patent families containing the word “biotechnology” and towns and cities within a given region or state.
- NIH funding—Figures for NIH funding were taken from the publicly available NIH RePORT database for the current federal fiscal year through July 1, plus all of fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024).
- Venture capital funding—Figures for all of 2024 and the first half of 2025 as compiled by regional life sciences groups and PitchBook, which joins with the National Venture Capital Association to publish the quarterly Venture Monitor reports.
- Laboratory space—The total-size-of-market figure, in millions of square feet, as furnished by regional life sciences groups. In regions that did not compile such information, the figure cited is the highest by any of several commercial real estate companies, including CBRE Group, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, and Newmark.
- Number of jobs—The preferred sources for job figures were regional life sciences groups. Alternative sources included commercial real estate firms.
1. Boston / Cambridge, MA
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard laid off 75 staffers (4% of its workforce) in June, a cost-cutting move blamed on shrinking federal research funding. Across Massachusetts, the Boston Business Journal tracked 39 Massachusetts companies idling a combined 2,300+ employees in the first half of 2025. The conga line of cuts included Waltham-based Mural Oncology (90% of workforce, 104 jobs); Bayer-owned BlueRock Therapeutics (shutting Cambridge labs, axing 50); Ono Pharma (83 jobs in Cambridge, its U.S. outpost); and Cambridge-based Vor Biopharma (95% of workforce, 147 jobs). But in June, Vor Bio bought ex-China global rights to Chinese-based RemeGen’s autoimmune candidate (Phase III in generalized myasthenia gravis) telitacicept for $125 million upfront and up to $4.1 billion-plus in milestones, after raising a $175 million private placement.
Biogen plans in 2028 to move within Cambridge to the 16-story, 585,000-square-foot 75 Broadway, leasing the whole building from BioMed Realty, a Blackstone portfolio company with the majority stake, and MIT Investment Management. Neuro-focused precision medicine developer QurAlis in June opened a 30,000-square-foot global HQ at 35 Cambridgepark Drive (35CPD), doubling its footprint within Cambridge’s Alewife Biotech Park.
Massachusetts has $1 billion set aside for biotech within the $4 billion “Mass Leads Act” enacted last November by Governor Maura Healey (D). She won “2025 Governor of the Year” honors from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), which in June drew a reported 20,000 to its International Convention at Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
Boston/Cambridge leads the nation in NIH funding (8,210 awards totaling $4.798 billion), 8% below a year ago—and lab space (62.1 million square feet, according to industry group MassBio). The region placed second in venture capital ($7.89 billion in 2024, $2.55 billion in Q1-Q2 2025, according to MassBio), third in patents (27,334 families) and fifth in jobs (116,937, says MassBio).
2. San Francisco Bay Area
Genentech in June eliminated 143 jobs at its South San Francisco campus, the Roche subsidiary’s third round of regional layoffs in 14 months. Other South San Francisco companies shedding jobs this year include Insitro (22% workforce cut, about 65 jobs), Nkarta (34%, 53 jobs), and Vaxart (10%, about 10 jobs) after the federal government halted its Phase IIb trial (NCT06672055) of a COVID-19 oral vaccine; the stop-work order was lifted and first patient dosed in May. Spotlight Therapeutics, which developed cell-targeted in vivo CRISPR gene editing therapies, shuttered in February, idling its workforce of about 30. However, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative signed a 225,000-square-foot lease at IQHQ’s Elco Yards district in Redwood City, California. SteelWave plans a 144,500-square-foot lab building at the old Alameda (CA) Shipways site. And University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) won $575 million in state bond financing for its 300,000-square-foot Dogpatch Power Station project including a life-sci incubator and cancer treatment center, set to break ground this year.
Concentra Biosciences, owned by Kevin C. Tang’s Tang Capital Management, acquired four struggling biotechs this year: San Carlos, CA-based Cargo Therapeutics, which develops CAR T-cell therapies vs. cancer; Mountain View, CA-based autoimmune drug developer IGM Biosciences; Kronos Bio, a cancer and autoimmune therapy company that shuttered its San Mateo, CA, headquarters; and Allakos, a onetime San Carlos, CA, developer of allergy and inflammatory disease drugs.
Statewide industry group BIOCOM California reported 150,491 life sciences jobs across San Francisco and suburbs, placing third but down about 4% from 156,454 last year. The Bay Area led the nation in venture capital, raising $12.36 billion in 2024 and $6.268 billion in Q1-Q2 2025, according to BIOCOM California citing HSBC data. The region ranked second in lab space (55.1 million square feet, according to Colliers) and patents (32,934 families), but fourth in NIH funding (5,914 awards totaling $3.342 billion).
3. BioHealth Capital Region (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.)
The BioHealth Capital Region is home to the FDA and NIH, which have eliminated 3,500 and 1,200 jobs, respectively. Government cuts helped shrink employment 1.8%, to 133,743 jobs (JLL data), pushing the region to fourth from third. Yet BHCR stayed in third place by leading the nation in patents (79,141 families) and placing third in lab space (36.823 million square feet according to JLL, including the NIH’s 9.2 million square feet in Bethesda, MD) and NIH funding (4,806 awards totaling $3.639 billion, down 16% from a year ago). Venture capital nosedived 53%, lowering BHCR to seventh with $1.03 billion in 2024 and $357.18 million in Q1-Q2 2025 (also JLL data).
BioNTech in June disclosed plans to eliminate 63 jobs at its Gaithersburg, MD, cell therapy site, where it will end manufacturing this summer. A month earlier, however, AstraZeneca opened a $300 million cell therapy manufacturing facility in Rockville, MD, where MilliporeSigma opened a $286 million biosafety testing facility last October. And in January, University of Maryland, Baltimore and developer Wexford Science + Technology completed 4MLK, a 250,000-square-foot multitenant lab-office building. Construction is proceeding on the University of Virginia’s Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology, where UVA Health in July announced two $25 million anonymous gifts. The Institute is set to be completed in 2027. In February, Growth and Opportunity for Virginia (GO Virginia), the commonwealth’s public-private economic development effort, approved $14.3 million for Project VITAL: Virginia Innovations and Technology Advancements in Life Sciences. VITAL plans to establish new research cores, expand workforce development, and create an academic-industry network.
4. New York / New Jersey
Two life sciences mega-campuses are taking shape in New York City, where the City Council in February approved Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) Kips Bay and Innovation East. SPARC calls for 2+ million square feet of life-sci, public health, and academic space and 3,100 permanent jobs where Hunter College’s Brookdale Campus stands on East 25th Street and First Avenue. Nearby, Innovation East (455 1st Avenue) will transform the former Public Health Laboratory site into a 500,000-square-foot life-sci hub projected to create 1,000+ jobs. Construction of both projects is expected through 2031. Outside the Big Apple, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is completing a $1.8 billion expansion of its Tarrytown, NY, headquarters campus. And in New Jersey, SJP Properties and New Brunswick Development Corp. are developing H-1, the 12-story, 574,000-square-foot first phase of the Health & Life Science Exchange (HELIX), a planned three-building, 1.6 million-square-foot downtown campus. H-1 will include the New Jersey Innovation HUB, a 30,000-square-foot incubator to be managed by Portal Innovations—plus a new home for Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a center for translational research.
New York and New Jersey placed second in both NIH funding (8,017 awards totaling $4.622 billion and jobs (151,400 according to Cushman & Wakefield) and climbed two notches this last year to fourth in venture capital as startup activity continued to heat up, especially in New York City ($1.758 billion in 2024 and $394 million in Q1-Q2 2025, according to PitchBook). The region is fifth in lab space (more than 24.5 million square feet, according to Colliers) and sixth in patents (11,715 families).
5. San Diego
“America’s Finest City” generated the largest lease ever for Alexandria Real Estate Equities, which on July 14 announced leasing 466,598 square feet to an undisclosed “longtime multinational pharmaceutical tenant” for a build-to-suit research hub at the Campus Point by Alexandria Megacampus
in University Town Center. San Diego also finally saw a significant life science user commit to the downtown Research and Development District (RaDD) completed by developer IQHQ in May, when the J. Craig Venter Institute announced it will relocate its West Coast operations there next year from the University of California San Diego campus in La Jolla. About 100 researchers and staffers will occupy a full floor in the Core building of RaDD, a $1.6 billion, 1.7 million square foot Pacific coastline campus. Also in May, Sterling Bay and Harrison Street opened the 690,000-square-foot first phase of their Pacific Center life-sci campus in Sorrento Mesa. A month earlier, Pfizer sold its five-building campus in Torrey Pines for $255 million to BioMed Realty—months after Pfizer Oncology moved into Breakthrough Properties’ Torrey View campus, where the pharma signed a 15-year, 230,000-square-foot lease last year. And CDMO National Resilience moved its HQ from La Jolla to Blue Ash, OH, in a June corporate cost-cutting that saw six of its sites shut down.
San Diego and vicinity remains third in venture capital behind Boston/Cambridge and the Bay Area ($3.808 billion in 2024, $1.057 in Q1-Q2 2025 according to BIOCOM California, citing HSBC data), thanks to deals led by the $180 million Series A financing of autoimmune drug developer Timberlyne Therapeutics in January. The “Plymouth of the West” and suburbs finished fourth in patents (16,668 families) and lab space (26.817 million square feet, says BIOCOM California, citing JLL data), propelled by the new campuses. However, the San Diego region was dragged down by its eighth place showing in jobs (71,448, according to BIOCOM California) and 10th place in NIH funding (2,395 awards totaling $1.458 billion), down 10.6% year-over-year.
6. Los Angeles / Orange County, CA
Speaking in April at the Milken Institute Global Conference held in Los Angeles, Flagship Pioneering and Moderna co-founder Noubar Afeyan shared how chilly the biotech investment climate has become: “It has never been as bad as this at all,” Afeyan said according to Axios. “Many of our biotech partners are feeling pinched,” added James “Jay” Bradner, MD, executive vice president, R&D with Thousand Oaks, CA-based Amgen, the region’s largest biotech, celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. Also in April, Lyell Immunopharma disclosed plans to shut down its Canoga Park, CA, manufacturing site in June, eliminating 73 jobs, after shifting production of IMPT-31, a CAR T cell therapy candidate designed to treat blood cancers, to Bothell, WA. One local investor remains bullish: Brentwood, CA-based Cypress Equity Investments this spring bought for $11 million the 15,770-square-foot 1756 Cloverfield Blvd. in Santa Monica, CA, now leased to TAE Life Sciences, a developer of targeted radiotherapies vs. cancer. In Westwood, CA, the $1 billion-plus California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy expects to move in its first of 5,000 employees including 500 researchers next year, within the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Research Park West.
LA/Orange led the nation in jobs (155,571, according to BIOCOM California) and placed fifth in venture capital ($1.198 billion in 2024 and $607 million in Q1-Q2 2025, according to HSBC data cited by BIOCOM California). But the “City of Angels” and its suburbs finished seventh in patents (6,772 families), eighth in lab space (11.757 million square feet, according to JLL data cited by BIOCOM California), and ninth in NIH funding (2,818 awards totaling $1.641 billion, down 22% year-over-year).
7. Greater Philadelphia
Greater Philadelphia’s biopharma job cuts include Century Therapeutics eliminating 51% of its workforce (about 77 staffers) in July in a cost-cutting move “to focus on programs with the highest potential for transformational value,” according to a July 7 regulatory filing. Tmunity Therapeutics, a developer of cell therapies for cancers that is part of Kite, a Gilead Company, chopped the remaining 14 positions at its Center City offices in June. Another cancer cell therapy developer, Carisma Therapeutics, eliminated nearly all its workforce (95%, some 42 jobs) in March; it now plans to reverse-merge with Ocugen subsidiary OrthoCellix. Passage Bio in January eliminated about 55% of its workforce (some 32 jobs). But the biggest workforce reduction came from Spark Therapeutics, as the gene therapy developer in April confirmed plans to lay off 337 employees while integrating Spark’s other 310 staffers into Spark’s parent Roche Group. On a brighter note, Minaris Regenerative Medicine in May joined the U.S. and U.K. operations of WuXi Advanced Therapies to form Minaris Advanced Therapies, a global cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and testing partner headquartered in Philadelphia. And in Middletown, DE, WuXi AppTec in February announced plans to build a $510 million, 1.74 million-square-foot facility offering contract research, testing, development, and manufacturing services.
Philadelphia and suburbs showed remarkable consistency in its rankings, scoring fifth in patents (16,484 families) and sixth in three other criteria: NIH funding (3,803 awards totaling $2,065 billion), lab space (24.5 million square feet, according to Colliers) and jobs (88,000-plus, Philadelphia’s Department of Commerce reported last fall). The region’s lowest showing was in venture capital, where it placed ninth with $656.3 million in 2024 and $235.9 million in Q1-Q2 2025 (PitchBook).
8. North Carolina
Fujifilm Biotechnologies has set September 24 for opening the first phase of its $3.2 billion end-to-end biomanufacturing facility in Holly Springs, NC. The contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) initially committed $2 billion to a facility with eight 20,000 L mammalian cell culture bioreactors, then last year announced plans to build eight more by 2028. The Tar Heel State’s biomaufacturing focus compelled the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) in June to choose North Carolina as the first stop in a nationwide “road tour” to familiarize members with lawmakers and other life-sci stakeholders. In July, Verona Pharma, a London biotech with U.S. HQ in Raleigh, found a buyer in Merck & Co., which is acquiring the lung disease drug developer for $10 billion. And Tune Therapeutics, an epigenetic editing therapy developer based in Durham, NC, and Seattle, rang in 2025 by raising over $175 million in Series B financing toward developing its pipeline, led by chronic Hepatitis B candidate Tune-401. Not all recent news has been upbeat: CDMO National Resilience in January cut 120 jobs at its gene therapy plant in Durham acquired from Bluebird Bio in 2021.
North Carolina placed fifth in NIH funding (3,402 awards totaling $2.361 billion) and sixth in venture capital ($657.633 million in 2024 and $928.794 million in Q1-Q2 2025, according to the state-funded North Carolina Biotechnology Center). The Tar Heel State landed seventh in both lab space (18.433 million, according to JLL data cited by the Center) and jobs (75,000, says the Center), but eighth in patents (5,715 families).
9. Seattle and Greater Puget Sound
Addressing Life Science Innovation Northwest in April, Nobel laureate David Baker, PhD, director of the Institute for Protein Design at University of Washington (UW), challenged biotech stakeholders, the Seattle Times reported: Tell everyone you know about the research that leads to treatments for disease. UW blames federal research spending cuts for termination of about 20 grants, an over 25% drop in graduate student enrollment, and a halt to plans for the Brightwork tech building with developer Wexford Science + Technology. Yet the region’s highest ranking remains in NIH funding (seventh with 2,264 awards totaling $1.758 billion). Also facing tough times is Seattle-based Nautilus Biotechnology, which in February eliminated 16% of its workforce (25 people), shrinking to 133 staffers in a cost-cutting move that extended its cash runway into 2027. Nautilus on July 30 announced a partnership with the Seattle-based Allen Institute focused on investigating the link between the tau protein and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Shingles vaccine developer Curevo in March completed a $110 million Series B financing toward extending its Phase II program for amezosvatein into an additional 640 participants, including adults over age 70. Also in March, Alcon took a majority stake in Seattle-based Aurion Biotech, a developer of regenerative cell therapies for eye diseases, and withdrew plans for an initial public offering (IPO) that sparked a court battle with Alcon.
Seattle and vicinity placed ninth in lab space (8.16 million square feet according to Flinn Ferguson Cresa data cited by Life Science Washington) and venture capital ($500 million in 2024 and $487.4 million in January-May 2025 according to statewide industry group Life Science Washington; June data was unavailable at deadline) to 10th in patents (5,156 families) and jobs (47,898 says Life Science Washington).
10. Chicagoland
“The universities here have very good science,” Arch Venture Partners co-founder and managing director Keith Crandell told Axios in June, explaining why he does business from Chicago. One of those universities, Northwestern, froze hiring and cut its administrative and academic budgets in June after the federal government froze $790 million in research funding, alleging the school had not done enough to stop campus antisemitism. Developer Trammell Crow in March announced leases, extensions, and expansions totaling 40,000 square feet at its 400 North Aberdeen in Chicago’s Fulton Market section with life-sci VC firm Portal Innovations, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, and P33, a nonprofit that promotes talent development and inclusive growth across Chicago’s tech sectors. In April Trammell Crow inked another lease with a Northwestern spinout, Grove Biopharma. The developer of therapies based on its Bionic Biologics platform tripled its space from 5,000 square feet at Portal Innovations to a 17,000 square-foot Science-Ready Lab suite at 400 North Aberdeen, soon after closing April 23 on a $30 million Series A financing. In suburban Des Plaines, IL, German CDMO Vetter Pharma broke ground on a $285 million clinical manufacturing site in June. The site is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2029, when Vetter plans to relocate its current clinical operations now based eight miles east in Skokie, IL.
The Windy City and vicinity placed eighth in NIH funding (3,204 awards totaling $1.729 billion), ranked ninth in patents (5,253 families) and jobs (“almost 59,000,” according to CBRE), and finished 10th in lab space (2.166 million, also according to CBRE) and venture capital ($436.1 million in 2024 and $449.9 million in Q1-Q2 2025, according to PitchBook).
Curious about GEN‘s 2024 and 2023 Top 10 U.S. Biopharma Clusters? You can check them out now.
The post Top 10 U.S. Biopharma Clusters 2025 appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.
