Civica Rx, Petersburg

As the world continues to struggle with drug supply chains and critical shortages, clusters of activity have emerged to move the needle of medication affordability and accessibility.

Until recently, Virginia was rarely considered among these thriving hives of innovation for biopharma and advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing (APM).

But Virginia has always been known for its strong manufacturing base, enabled by top talent and workforce solutions, reasonable operating costs, a commonsense business climate, strong energy and logistics infrastructure, and a commitment to identifying and developing sites for manufacturers. From there, the Commonwealth engineered efficiencies to navigate past obstacles and trim red tape faster and more reliably than competitors.

The upshot? In recent years, Virginia has emerged as an increasingly popular landing spot for life science projects; specifically, for launches, relocations, and expansions related to biopharma and APM.

The reasons for building and chasing that momentum are perhaps best summed up by Eli Lilly and Company CEO David Ricks’ comments from late 2025, which followed an announcement that his company would build a $5 billion, state-of-the-art cancer and autoimmune therapy facility in Goochland County.

“Our investment in Virginia underscores our commitment to U.S. innovation and manufacturing — creating high-quality jobs, strengthening communities, and advancing the health and well-being of Americans nationwide. By expanding our domestic capacity, we’re building a secure, resilient supply chain that delivers for patients today and supports the breakthrough medicines of tomorrow.”

THE WINNING FORMULA

The AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Merck announcements were not a recent flash in the pan. They were the product of a steady nine-year process that began with Gupton’s shot in the arm.

“There really is no place in the nation right now this focused on the advanced manufacturing of essential medications, from the key starting materials to the active ingredients that go into the syringe or vial,” Robby Demeria, chief corporate affairs officer for Phlow Corporation, said in 2022. “There is significant activity. Stars are aligning.”

Phlow is a leading American pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization focused on drug substance, founded in 2020 by Gupton and Dr. Eric Edwards. That same year, Phlow was awarded a $354 million contract to expand the pharmaceutical manufacturing industrial base with new manufacturing facilities to reshore the development and manufacturing of essential medicines regularly in shortage and susceptible to supply chain disruption.

Meanwhile, Utah-based nonprofit generic drug manufacturer Civica Rx partnered with Phlow and M4ALL to build a $125 million sterile injection manufacturing facility in Petersburg. Through the now-operational collaboration, Civica is manufacturing insulin with a target price of $30 per vial, or 10% of what uninsured patients could pay prior to the biosimilar insulin being available.

These organizations all played starring roles in creating the Alliance for Building Better Medicine (ABBM), the galvanizing Richmond-Petersburg regional coalition created through a 2020 GO Virginia grant. In 2022, ABBM won a $53 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, backed with $111 million of state and private funding, to build a regional biopharmaceutical ecosystem to support a resilient drug supply.

“The early investments to stand up Phlow and Civica manufacturing facilities dramatically accelerated the coalition’s work,” said Joy Polefrone, APM Tech Hub regional innovation officer and ABBM’s founding executive director.

Now, more than four years since the Build Back Better announcement, ABBM has attracted more than 50 partner organizations. Its partners have also notched $1.5 billion in shared project investments and created more than 2,200 advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs.

“We went from an economic development funnel of pretty much nothing to $10 billion in five years,” said Polefrone.

Polefrone describes her role as being “a facilitator of all the stakeholders and pulling out the shared value proposition of the collective.” In other words, she’s a connector of dots when it comes to the Alliance and cluster’s various partners.

“It doesn’t work if we don’t align to [partners’] needs and outcomes,” she said.

This included academia and the private sector working hand in hand, with nearby institutions including VCU, Virginia State University, and the Community College Workforce Alliance — the workforce development division of two Richmond-area community colleges, Brightpoint and Reynolds — all participating in ABBM.

In 2023, the role of academia in providing workforce and innovation to Virginia’s growing biopharma and APM ecosystem received another boost, this time from then-Gov. Youngkin. He announced a nearly $100-million “Virginia Research Triangle,” which quickly evolved into a quadrilateral, thanks to the participation of VCU, the University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Tech, and Old Dominion University.

A FRESH APPROACH

Not only has COVID-19 been in the crosshairs of Virginia’s biopharma and APM ecosystem since the beginning — including significant drug improvements led by M4ALL — but the pandemic itself helped shift the playing field for the Commonwealth.

For starters, COVID illuminated many of the shortcomings and vulnerabilities of the global drug supply chain at the time. And when it came to learning lessons from COVID, such as strategically stockpiling essential medications, many of these emerging best practices withered in favor of a just-in-time manufacturing approach.

Virginia, on the other hand, embraced the opportunity to get critical medications in the hands of consumers — faster and cheaper than the status quo allowed.

Today, Virginia’s efforts to create an integrated end-to-end capability for everything from domestic key starting material sourcing to API production to fill-finish manufacturing have created a prototype for other states to emulate. That’s because the approach can provide resilience for the Commonwealth.

“We’re seeing a lot of uncertainty on the geopolitical front,” said Didi Caldwell, president and CEO of site selection firm Global Location Strategies (GLS).

From navigating various international and domestic regulatory issues to importing highly specialized APM equipment and other tariff considerations, pharmaceutical manufacturers face several obstacles when importing.

GLS outlined the challenging landscape in its inaugural “Best Places for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing — 2026 Therapeutics Biologics Edition” report: “As global supply chains strain under geopolitical pressure, tariffs reshape trade, and talent shortages deepen, the ability to locate and scale advanced manufacturing capacity in the right places has become both an economic imperative and a matter of national security.”

This environment includes 100% tariffs on branded pharmaceuticals, with an exception for companies building a U.S. manufacturing presence. That’s yet another area where Virginia was out front, thanks to its focus on domestic production.

That said, current challenges also extend to hiring, an area already clouded by demographic factors, including the Baby Boom generation’s long exit from the workforce.

“On the workforce side, it’s getting harder to bring in a specialized workforce on a visa,” Caldwell said.

That’s yet another reason why Virginia has been laser-focused on building a pipeline of qualified pharmaceutical manufacturing workers to go with its long-established research and development strengths.

MEETING THE WORKFORCE SCALING CHALLENGE

Despite the parade of wins, proactive moves, and prolonged momentum, Virginia still faces headwinds as it grows its biopharma and APM clusters.

One of those areas involves workforce; specifically, building out the pipeline to make the Commonwealth competitive with nearby established biopharma hotspots like New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Many of Virginia’s built-in advantages are designed to drive efficiency via innovation. This includes continuous manufacturing, which enables sustained processing of raw ingredients instead of manufacturing in smaller batches, greatly reducing waste.

But not all such enhancements can happen on the fly. Expanding a highly qualified workforce requires a patient, all-hands-on-deck approach — like what’s happening in the Richmond-Petersburg cluster.

Much of the early work done by M4ALL and ABBM laid the groundwork for industry and academics seamlessly engaging, from building new, highly specialized curricula to creating clear pathways from K-12 education through higher education — including the community college system, four-year-degree-granting institutions, and graduate programs.

Polefrone notes intentionality behind the creation of stackable academic programming made possible by the Build Back Better EDA grant. And when opportunities arise, she continues to strengthen these established collaborative relationships across the Alliance’s more than 50 partners, who continue to work closely in building a workforce system through the EDA Good Jobs Challenge-funded APM Workforce intermediary.

Virginia’s workforce is poised to receive another boost because state leadership didn’t just do a victory lap after landing the AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Merck facilities. Instead, the Commonwealth announced that it would be building the country’s largest workforce development center for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing, thanks in part to a $120 million investment from those three companies. Numerous Virginia higher education institutions are already committed to participate in the project, including UVA, VCU, James Madison University, Virginia Tech, Hampton University, and the Virginia Community College System’s member institutions.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP

When it comes to the trajectory of Virginia’s biopharma and APM ecosystem, there’s ample reason to be excited. But there’s also a needed reality check — a reminder that work remains to be done, even after the historic streak of announcements last fall.

This is laid bare in GLS’ “Best Places for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing” report, where the Washington metro area ranks 27^th on the list, with Richmond coming in at 57^th.

“We’re not just asking, ‘Where’s the best place to do it?’ — we’re asking, ‘Where’s the best value?’” Caldwell said.

“If Virginia is able to align its universities, training centers, incubators, and industrial development into a clear market proposition, then I think the momentum and the upside is very meaningful,” she added. “There’s nothing like a multi-billion-dollar project that snaps the vision and the urgency into clear focus.”

Another positive outcome of winning projects at a time when companies understand the importance of reshoring, the efficiency of continuous manufacturing, and the impact of simplified supply chains is lasting value creation.

“Given the stringent regulatory environment and the high cost and complexity of facility validation, biologics plants are rarely relocated once established,” Caldwell said. “As a result, these investments become lasting anchors in local economies, catalyzing innovation ecosystems and supporting the development of a highly skilled workforce.”

That’s exactly what leaders like Gupton and Polefrone are endeavoring to create — one conversation or collaboration at a time.

Other states “look at Virginia as a model on how you build this together,” Polefrone said. “They’re just blown away at what we’re doing.”

Virginia’s progress isn’t just raising eyes and drawing praise, it’s printing headlines. Just this past October 2025, Pharmaceutical Technology called the Commonwealth an “up-and-coming gem.” Christian Haller, VP, Mid-Atlantic Region, at global investment community Keiretsu Forum, said Virginia has “a stated goal of being the next Research Triangle, and they seem to be doing everything they can to get there.”

Meanwhile, Gupton, who is now focused on lifesaving medication for rare diseases, sees the building blocks for a successful ecosystem not as announced wins or onshored API, but in the collaboration needed to accomplish tasks from making small talk to breaking down silos — when students rally around the mission of this massive latticework that is a truly connected ecosystem built for speed, and not the technology or training.

“I’ve heard people talking in the hallways about why this needs to get done — because people are dying,” he said.

At the end of the day, saving time, saving cost, simplifying processes, eliminating waste, and streamlining collaboration isn’t just about driving efficiency.

It’s about saving lives.