Worcester’s Biotech Success Story Faces a Critical Lab Space Shortage

Worcester Builds a Biotech Hub, but Can It Keep the Companies It Creates?

By-Hank Stolz
Graphic-Radio Worcester/ Photo: X

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Worcester, MA-Worcester’s biotech sector is emerging as a regional economic success story while Boston faces an oversupply of empty lab space. In an interview with the Boston Globe’s Shira Schoenberg, she discusses how Worcester has built a thriving biotech cluster through strategic investments in infrastructure like the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) incubator, partnerships between local officials and private industry, and leverage of its academic institutions including WPI and UMass Medical School.

“Local officials have worked with the state, have worked with private industry to really build up this biotech industry, whether you’re talking about the biotech research park, MBI, bringing in companies like AbbVie and most recently WuXi Biologics.”

Worcester’s Transformation from Manufacturing City to Biotech Hub

Schoenberg explains, “I think Worcester was like a lot of struggling gateway cities that it used to be a manufacturing town. There were the textile mills, the tool and die industry. When that industry went overseas or went south, I mean I think Worcester lost something like 40,000 people in the 1950s through the 80s. But then really since the 80s with UMass Medical School, with the creation of the biotech research park, MBI, it really has experienced a renaissance that’s helped grow the population.”

“And as there are more jobs that’s led to the creation of an entertainment industry, a sports industry, Worcester was able to bring the Woosox in. It’s really helped Worcester become a complimentary hub to Boston. I mean, there are still challenges, there’s no question. The median income in Worcester is still lower than in Massachusetts overall. But at the same time over the last decade, you’ve had a lot more residents with bachelor’s degrees moving in.”

Why Worcester’s Biotech Companies Are Leaving

However, the sector faces a critical challenge: only 8% of MBI graduates remain in Worcester due to insufficient lab space for expanding companies.

She notes where these companies, incubated in Worcester, head off to and why:

“And in Boston right now, yeah, there’s a lot of empty lab space. There’s definitely room to attract some of these companies. I mean, some may also move out of state, certainly attractive to move to places. I’d say North Carolina, for example, has got a much lower cost of living as well as a big tech scene. So, some leave the state; some might move to Boston.”

“I think the challenge for Worcester is it really needs to figure out how to attract the private investors that it needs to build the lab space on the assumption that eventually you get a bunch of investors, you get a bunch of lab space, Worcester will be an attractive place to stay.”

Can Worcester’s Biotech Model Work in Other Massachusetts Cities?

Schoenberg notes that similar incubator models could be replicated in other Massachusetts gateway cities, each playing to their unique strengths, such as New Bedford’s port or Lowell’s defense technology focus, supported by state tax incentives and subsidies that help offset high construction costs relative to lower regional rents.

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