Top Markets for Life Sciences Talent

or life sciences companies, CBRE’s newly released annual report on talent across the sector includes some highly salient findings. While absent major surprises, the report released June 5 provides granular level insights into the Top 100 life sciences markets — up from 75 in CBRE’s previous two such studies. Further, the commercial real estate consultancy expanded the scope of its study beyond research & development talent to include talent pipelines in manufacturing and medical technology.

The top takeaway, says CBRE, is that despite sluggish growth within the industry since the onset of interest rate increases, demand for life sciences professionals remains strong.

“Securing top talent remains a challenge,” said Ian Anderson, CBRE senior director of research, in a tightly conducted webinar introducing the report. “Even in the near term we are expecting that this challenge will persist.”

No shocker, the top market for life sciences talent remains Boston/Cambridge, placing as it did first for R&D talent, second in the manufacturing subsector and third for med-tech talent. Six other markets ranked within the Top 10 across all three subsectors. In order, they are San Francisco, New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles/Orange County, San Diego, Philadelphia and Chicago.

Broken down by subsector, Boston’s top ranking for R&D talent is followed by San Francisco, the Washington/Baltimore region, New York/New Jersey and Los Angeles/Orange County. The manufacturing talent subsector is paced by New York/New Jersey, followed as noted by Boston/Cambridge, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco Bay. Los Angeles/Orange County leads the med-tech talent subsector, followed by med-tech stalwart Minneapolis, Boston/Cambridge, San Francisco Bay and New York/New Jersey.

Talent Ecosystems Extend Beyond MSAs
CBRE analysts advise that life sciences ventures large and small evaluate talent ecosystems that, like the tentacles of an octopus, spread out from the center.

“Generally speaking,” said Anderson, “when we and other analysts examine the sector, we evaluate these markets by metropolitan statistical areas. In reality, many times these markets benefit from adjacent markets closer to them that may not obviously be a part of the same MSA.”

Anderson asserts, for example, that the Colorado ecosystem is not a series of isolated life sciences markets, but an agglomeration that builds upon itself.

“Denver/Boulder benefits from the other emerging talent coming from Fort Collins,” he says, “as well as some of the existing talent in Colorado Springs and other areas. They all work together and benefit from each other’s synergies and talent spillover.”

Anderson also mentioned San Jose and Oakland as contributors to the Bay Area ecosystem and Providence, Rhode Island, and Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, as propellants for the Boston metro.

Ann-Stewart Patterson, CBRE executive vice president for Raleigh, North Carolina, weighed in on the expansion of life sciences talent outside the booming Research Triangle.

“We do have a tremendous amount of talent coming into our market from UNC Chapel Hill, Duke and NC State,” she said. “But we also have an ecosystem with graduates from universities in Virginia coming here looking for jobs, very similar to what you see in the Bay Area. We have a lot of companies that are hiring.”

Up-and-Coming Markets
Madison, Wisconsin, and Trenton, New Jersey, are newcomers to CBRE’s Top 25. Both markets, the report found, have highly educated workforces supported by prestigious universities including Princeton and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Madison, according to the findings, has the highest concentration of microbiologists, chemists and biological technicians within the Top 100 markets, while Trenton boasts the highest concentration of epidemiologists and one of the highest for chemists, biochemists and biophysicists.

The report also identified five markets outside the Top 100 for demonstrating notable promise as havens for emerging talent. They include Santa Cruz, California; College Station, Texas; Fort Collins, Colorado; Gainesville, Florida; and Charlottesville, Virginia.

“All five,” said Anderson, “have significant research institutions and all receive an attractive amount of funding from the National Institutes of Health for health care and life sciences research. We’ll be keeping our eyes on these in the future.”

‘Rock Stars’ Take Center Stage
The importance of universities was a theme throughout the half-hour briefing held June 5. Dan Lyne of CBRE’s Midwest Division offered intriguing insights into the vital role of prominent academicians in attracting emerging talent into the classroom and, more broadly, into the overall ecosystem.

“The phenotype of your academic researcher has changed dramatically over the past decade,” Lyne observed. “They aren’t just sitting inside the curriculum of the university but have multiple companies that they’ve either founded or where they sit on the board. Universities have to go out of their way to attract those individuals in order to also attract the student type that they want.”

As an example, Lyne cited Northwestern University’s lengthy effort to recruit Shana O. Kelley, the renowned Canadian biomedical engineer, to serve as the school’s Neena Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering.

“Shana,” said Lyne, “brings with her the companies that she has been working with, and those companies are attracting talent into the Chicago market that otherwise wouldn’t be coming in.”

“Securing top talent remains a challenge.”
— Ian Anderson, CBRE Senior Director of Research

In December, the prestigious Chan Zuckerberg Initiative tapped Chicago as a national biomedical research hub — with Kelley serving as president — to explore new methods of understanding and treating inflammation. CZI selected Chicago through a highly competitive process that included 58 applicants.

“This makes Chicago an epicenter of global research into something we frankly still don’t know that much about. And it has the potential to bring even more talent into the market. It cannot be overstated,” said Lyne, “the role that some of these major academic rock stars are playing in the ecosystem.”