Workforce Development

“North Carolina’s ‘ace’ was its ability to provide an instantaneous workforce.” – Joerg Reinhardt, CEO, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, in announcing the company’s new flu vaccine biomanufacturing facility in Holly Springs.

Making an Impact in Workforce Training

NCBioImpact

Across North Carolina, we make industry-tailored worker training a top priority. We’re proud of our unique and successful climate of partnership between industry and education. We rely on a consortium — NCBioImpact —that brings together key partners to meet the needs of the state’s pharmaceutical and biomanufacturing companies. The effort includes:

• Community colleges
• State universities, including
  • BTEC 
  • BRITE
• NCBIO, representing the North Carolina biotechnology industry
• The North Carolina Biotechnology Center

Golden LEAF, a statewide foundation that dispenses funds from a legal settlement with tobacco companies, supports the effort. Since its founding in 1999 it has provided nearly $69 million for NCBioImpact initiatives.

Knowing What You Need To Know

Jobs in the life sciences aren’t your average assembly-line work. Making things from biological materials—biomanufacturing—demands specialized training. So one important job of the Biotechnology Center has been to reach out to state, national, and international partners and develop standards that can validate the basic skills people need for working in biomanufacturing. Our in-depth knowledge of the job requirements and career paths lets us help North Carolinians respond to evolving industry needs.

Tracking Industry Needs

Education and training specialists at the Biotechnology Center stay in front of trends in the biotech industry’s workforce and training needs. We don’t guess. We use formal surveys to dig into various biotech sectors. We’ve been compiling information from biomanufacturers since 1995. And we publish some of our findings, as in the Window on the Workplace 2003.

Training New Technicians

When you’re using biology to make a product, you need to know something about science and about manufacturing. To make sure we have a steady supply of workers ready to step into North Carolina’s ever-increasing array of biomanufacturing jobs, Biotechnology Center education and training specialists linked with partners in industry and the North Carolina Community College System, developing an introductory course called BioWork.

And it does work. Companies across the state often require new technicians to have BioWork training. And why wouldn’t they? Students who successfully complete the course already know the biomanufacturing industry when they’re hired as entry-level process technicians.