NCBiotech News

This summer, five community college instructors had the opportunity to learn what it is really like to work at a biotech company or institution through the Biomedical Emerging Technology Applications (BETA) Summer Fellows Industry Program. 

The eight-week program pairs each fellow with a company or institution to gain experience in a corporate environment and learn the biotech skills and traits needed to better prepare their students for this workforce.

The AgTech Innovation Alliance, an agricultural innovation network spearheaded by California-based nonprofit AgStart, has won a $150,000 Small Business Administration award that includes funds to boost North Carolina’s growing ag tech industry.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center is participating as one of the alliance’s eight regional partners in receiving the award. NCBiotech - the only partner on the East Coast - will receive $10,000 over two years to support and promote innovation in crop science, animal health, food tech and precision agriculture.

North Carolina is home to some of the world’s leading life sciences companies, renowned research universities, and workforce development programs to support growing demand for STEM-trained employees. North Carolina State University’s latest project, the Integrative Sciences Initiative and Building, highlights a key strength of the state’s life sciences ecosystem: an understanding of the convergence of disciplines at the heart of life sciences innovation.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded 31 grants and loans totaling $2,764,811 to universities, life sciences companies and non-profit organizations in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year.

The awards, made in April, May and June, will support bioscience research, technology commercialization and entrepreneurship throughout North Carolina. The funding will also help universities and companies attract follow-on funding from other sources.

The mood was upbeat as North Carolina Department of Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders opened the state’s First in Talent Townhall on July 27, just two weeks after CNBC named the Tar Heel State the country’s top state for business—for the second year in a row. Sanders also serves on the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Board of Directors. 

At the age of 17, Jakobi Blue-Smith of Raleigh, NC, already had an idea what she wanted to study in college. After she told her internship counselor at Wake Young Women’s Leadership Academy about her interests, it wasn’t long before she applied for an internship through OpenDoors Summer Internship (ODSI) program.

“I told my counselor the field I was interested in was biotechnology incorporated with research, and she found exactly what I was looking for,” said Blue-Smith. “I immediately applied for it.”

A combination of economic development projects in multiple sectors – life sciences, electric vehicles, semiconductors, and even retail – helped land North Carolina the sole top spot in the latest issue of Area Development, a quarterly publication covering site selection, facility planning and economic development.

For the second consecutive year, North Carolina has been named by CNBC as “America’s Top State for Business.” 

“At a time when companies are clamoring for workers while trying to navigate a treacherous economy, no state is meeting their needs more effectively than North Carolina,” writes CNBC Special Correspondent Scott Cohn, who created the business news network’s annual competitiveness study of states in 2007.

“Business and the economy in the state have been on a tear since the pandemic, and the state has scarcely looked back,” he adds.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center and a host of partners showcased the strengths of North Carolina’s life sciences community at BIO 2023, the international biotechnology conference in Boston last week.  

ProKidney LLC, a Winston-Salem-based clinical-stage biotechnology company founded in 2015 and targeting chronic kidney disease (CKD) with a proprietary cell therapy, plans to create up to 330 jobs and establish a new manufacturing facility in Greensboro by 2027. 

Local startups innovating in health care made important connections with leaders from health systems and payer organizations during the “Aligning Health Care Innovation in North Carolina: Health Systems, Payers, Innovators, and the Quintuple Aim,” event held on April 27. 

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded 87 grants and loans totaling $2,283,930 to universities, bioscience companies and non-profit organizations in the third quarter of its fiscal year.

The awards, made in January, February and March, will support life science research, technology commercialization and entrepreneurship throughout North Carolina. The funding will also help universities and companies attract follow-on funding from other sources.

An exciting group of startups innovating in health care pitched as part of the April 27 event, “Aligning Health Care Innovation in North Carolina: Health Systems, Payers, Innovators, and the Quintuple Aim.”

North Carolina has been recognized by Merchant Maverick as one of the top10 states in the country for women-led startups.

Life sciences and related companies from around the world announced new or expanded facilities in 2022 that will bring more than $2.1 billion in investment and over 2,700 new jobs to North Carolina.