NCBiotech News

Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem has won a $579,961 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to define the workforce skills technicians will need for manufacturing jobs at the intersection of biomedical devices and tissue engineering.

Even though Biogen’s headquarters are in the Boston suburb of Cambridge, the global biopharmaceutical company’s ethos of community reinvestment continues to enrich North Carolina. That was again evident this week when Biogen marked the opening of its first-ever Global Business Services (GBS) Center by announcing the addition of 150 new, local jobs during the next two years.

Grifols, a Spanish biotherapeutics company that employs some 2,500 people in North Carolina, donated more than 25 million international units (IU) of blood clotting factor in 2017, as part of an eight-year commitment to changing the lives of people with hemophilia in 47 countries who have limited access to treatment.

North Carolina is one of five states consistently recognized for its specialized life science industry. The state’s strong network of life science companies, universities and skilled workforce provide a strong advantage for companies of all sizes and stages of development. Statewide, North Carolina has more than 700 life science companies with 63,000 employees, and employment within life sciences is growing at 6.6 percent – triple the national average.

The global diabetes and obesity epidemic is driving an additional $65 million expansion of Novo Nordisk’s drug-manufacturing operations at its 264-acre campus in Clayton.

The benefits of medical innovation took center stage Thursday at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, as researchers, patient advocates and pharmaceutical industry representatives gathered to reflect on the industry’s importance.

If you’re among the thousands of pharmaceutical manufacturing workers in six Southeastern states, you can escape the admission fee for the 25th annual conference of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s Carolina-South Atlantic chapter March 13 in Raleigh.

To those who think biotechnology in North Carolina is an urban industry suited only for the Research Triangle, Piedmont Triad or Greater Charlotte regions, Mark Phillips has some eye-opening data that will nix that perception.

Humacyte, a regenerative medicine company based in Morrisville, has launched a Phase 2 clinical trial of Humacyl, its bioengineered blood vessel, in patients with peripheral arterial disease.