BIOTECH BOOM.

As North Carolina lands new biotech companies and longtime industry employers continue to grow, a shortage of staff to fill the jobs has evolved. But leaders in biotech education and business are confident new programs and better outreach will meet employers' needs and advance the careers of N.C. students and workers.

PANELISTS

Doug Edgeton

president and CEO, North Carolina Biotechnology Center

Bernadette Donovan-Merkert

professor of chemistry, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

John Kegerise

vice president, CSL Seqirus

Scott Ralls

president, Wake Technical Community College

Lisa Smelser

program director for biotechnology, Central Carolina Community College

John Wagner

program manager, Biotech Manufacturers Forum

WHAT ARE SOME NEW THINGS HAPPENING IN BIO MANUFACTURING AND RELATED INDUSTRIES THAT NORTH CAROLINIANS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?

EDGETON: For NCBiotech, we have been working on ways to better prepare the life sciences workforce in our state. Part of that effort is via the Federal Economic Development Administration's (EDA) Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) grant. NCBiotech coordinated the request for proposal response among 28 partners spread across North Carolina. Our state was one of 60 EDA BBBRC awards out of 529 proposals submitted nationwide. The purpose of this award is to stimulate career opportunities for people in locations that have not historically benefited from employment in the rapidly growing life sciences sector. This is particularly true for eastern North Carolina. The Phase 2 BBBRC award provides about $20 million to the community college system for buying equipment to provide training. Another $5 million will go to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and one Historically American Indian University (HAIU) for more advanced training programs in biomanufacturing. Lastly, NCBiotech will utilize about $ 1.5 million to create and execute a campaign targeting North Carolina residents to raise awareness about training and career opportunities in this growing field.

One of the big challenges is that many people do not know these jobs exist. If people are aware of the career opportunities, they may not know where to look to secure training or employment.

WAGNER: The Biotechnology Center and the Commerce Department working together did a great job over the last five years bringing a lot of new projects, both expansions of existing and new projects to the area. There's a lag of two or three years from groundbreaking to hiring. ... They've got to build these facilities before they start hiring, but (the hiring) is hitting now. What's happening initially now is companies are just stealing from each other. Employees are moving from one to another. They tend to migrate toward startups. So we really need to work hard to make the pie bigger, so that there are more workers and it's just not shells moving back and forth. And I think that's the biggest focus right now.

KEGERISE: The problem John (Wagner) identified around the amount of talent in the area also continues as those companies grow and their expansions come live. We recently completed our own expansion at CSL Seqirus but there is more construction underway. We have a lot more jobs than we do people in the area. Our solution has been to look at different geographical areas or different partners who we can collaborate with to bring in new talent. We need to think about how we advertise that the pharmaceutical industry has a variety of different needs and a variety of different jobs. You don't need to be a chemist or a biologist to have a job in the industry. You can be a finance major, for example, or you could work as a mechanic.

WAGNER: Many people are intimidated by the biotech industry. You don't need to be a Ph.D. in chemistry, biology or whatever to work. In fact, most of the jobs don't require a technical degree. We need to get that word out, especially in some of the underrepresented populations.

SMELSER: Community colleges really can provide some of that service. At Central Carolina specifically, we've trained over 300 people through our Biowork program since May of 2020. And the best part of what I get to do is see these people who maybe have some college and...