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In Virginia, recent biopharma wins are no coincidence
January 9, 2026
In September and October 2025, Virginia landed $12.5 billion in biopharma manufacturing investment from three of the industry’s giants. Merck & Co. is building a $3 billion Center of Excellence for Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Small Molecule Manufacturing in Rockingham County. AstraZeneca is investing $4.5 billion to build two manufacturing facilities in Albemarle County — one for new drug substance manufacturing and one dedicated to antibody-drug conjugates focused on therapies for oncology indications, according to the company. And Eli Lilly & Company is investing $5 billion in a new facility in Goochland County producing critical drug components and finished medicines.
It’s not a coincidence, and it doesn’t signal sudden success in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, which already employs nearly 61,000 Virginians. These companies are tapping into an advanced life sciences ecosystem that in recent years has seen heightened state, federal and private investment aimed at consolidating biopharma manufacturing and supply chains in the U.S., and in Virginia specifically.
“Around the time of COVID, there were increasing concerns around drug shortages, the quality of products manufactured overseas and the need to make supply chains more local,” says Grace Festa, industry director, biopharmaceuticals, at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP). “Federal policies and tariffs have accelerated those issues, resulting in companies investing billions of dollars in new U.S. facilities.”
Why Virginia?
“The pharmaceutical industry is very glued to certain manufacturing hubs, and it requires very specialized infrastructure and talent,” says Festa. “Their expectation is that services and resources provided to them are specialized for biopharma manufacturing. They want people actually doing pharmaceutical engineering or technician-level training specifically for the pharma industry.”
Virginia has a long history of innovative technologies from its six R1 universities, adds Festa. “But in the past several years there has been a tremendous amount of effort, attention and investment into building the ecosystem around biopharmaceutical manufacturing and drug discovery.”
- Topics:
- Advanced Manufacturing
- BioScience
