Biotech's New Hubs Are Booming—Here Are the Places Investors and Manufacturers Are Betting On

While Boston, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area continue to dominate the life science industry’s center of gravity, secondary hubs like Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Minneapolis, Minn., are gaining momentum thanks to their lower costs, steady talent pipelines and a surge of new facilities.

That’s the latest perspective from commercial real estate firm CBRE, which recently ranked several of these up-and-coming markets among the nation’s top “rising contenders,” in its U.S. Life Sciences Outlook report. The firm noted that more than one-third of all new life sciences lab construction in the U.S. is now taking place outside the traditional power centers, a sign that investors and employers are betting on broader geographic growth.

The trend is most visible in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, where some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical names have recently broken ground. In the past year alone, Biogen, Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, and Fujifilm each announced billion-dollar projects that will add manufacturing capacity and create thousands of jobs.

“We’ve seen quite a few new greenfield projects announced by multinationals, and many of those large users have gone to new locations to develop their own large-scale production capacity, passing over some available smaller spaces,” said Matt Gardner, Americas life sciences advisory leader at CBRE. “For us, that points to an interesting indicator.”

According to other life science property reports, Boston and San Diego saw more space vacated than leased, while the Bay Area saw the opposite, but still had about a third of its space sitting empty. In contrast, Raleigh-Durham saw the strongest demand in the country, with more than a million square feet of new leases signed in early 2025, enough to keep pace with a surge of new lab space opening at the same time.

North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park

The Raleigh-Durham area, known as Research Triangle Park, is anchored by universities such as Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State. The region has become a magnet for gene therapy and biotech startups in recent years, thanks to its steady flow of talent and lower operating costs. Now, some of the world’s biggest drugmakers are expanding there as well.

Biogen is putting $2 billion into expanding its manufacturing sites in the Triangle, adding new production lines and modernizing its facilities. Johnson & Johnson is spending a similar amount to build a biologics plant in the region that will employ about 420 people once it’s up and running. Amgen has committed $1 billion for a second drug manufacturing facility in the area, creating 370 jobs. And Fujifilm is also adding another $1.2 billion to its existing campus, which will make it one of the largest sites of its kind in North America.

Utah’s Life Sciences Cluster

Salt Lake City has steadily built a reputation as a hub for medtech and biotech, supported by research at the University of Utah and state-backed workforce programs.

The region now counts more than 180,000 jobs tied directly and indirectly to the life sciences industry, generating $22 billion annually. The state’s largest employers in the sector include BioFire Diagnostics, Merit Medical, and Recursion.

In March, Denali Therapeutics, which is headquartered in South San Francisco, Calif., opened a new 60,000-square-foot facility in Salt Lake City, a move the company says will expand its U.S. manufacturing capabilities as it begins clinical trials.

“Denali Therapeutics’ decision to build this facility here is a testament to the strength of Utah’s workforce, the vision of our educators and research institutions, and the growing momentum in our life sciences sector,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who attended the event, wrote on LinkedIn.

A Colliers International report released in January found the state now ranks third in the U.S. for concentration of life science jobs, with wages averaging about $96,000 and more than $21 billion in annual economic output.

Minnesota’s Medical Alley

Minnesota has approximately 7,400 life science companies, employing more than 325,000 people. The state is home to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and major device makers like Medtronic, Boston Scientific and 3M Health Care. The Minneapolis–St. Paul region, known as “Medical Alley,” has built on that foundation to become one of the world’s leading clusters for devices and diagnostics.

“Minneapolis has a particularly high concentration of medtech talent — double that of Boston,” said Taylor Lee, associate research director at CBRE, during the roundtable.