Avisit to the Cincinnati region in April shed light on one powerful node in a life sciences sector that Ohio Life Sciences reports employs nearly 64,000 people across the state at an average wage of $105,000 and that has produced 7,600 patent awards between 2019 and 2023.
The number of those jobs has risen by 12.8% since 2019. Judging by the momentum at Resilience in West Chester, AtriCure in Mason and Enable Injections in Evendale, the jobs, patents and company footprints will continue to grow.
Resilience, founded during the Covid-19 epidemic, is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) focused on delivering high-quality, scalable manufacturing solutions for advanced therapies with capabilities spanning biologics drug substance, cell-based therapies and aseptic drug product manufacturing for both small and large molecules. The site in West Chester, formerly part of an AstraZeneca operation until Resilience acquired it in 2023, does formulation filling, device assembly and packaging.
Josh Matson, vice president, general manager and site head for Resilience, says the site was attractive because it had a good regulatory history and a good workforce with a historically low turnover rate. The Midwest location is both affordable and accessible to a lot of potential clients. And Matson says being around so many Fortune 500 companies in the region imparts confidence that the area can support Resilience’s growth.
Last year the company announced a 200-job expansion that includes a 190,000-sq.-ft. location in Blue Ash that will add additional highly automated Device Assembly and Packaging capabilities for drug products filled at the West Chester location. Additionally, the Blue Ash location will add significant cold and ambient storage capacity to support both locations. Significantly, the Blue Ash location will now also serve as Resilience corporate headquarters, which previously was located in San Diego.
“It’s a good, rewarding career, and it’s always good to know you’re doing something that’s positively affecting people’s lives.”
— Josh Matson, Vice President, General Manager and Site Head, Resilience
Resilience was anticipating that the Cincinnati workforce would grow to nearly 1,000 workers with the expansion, but Matson says the head count now is approaching 1,100 already. The company in October 2025 received long-term debt financing of up to $825 million from Oak Hill Advisors that will enable investment in manufacturing in Cincinnati and at a similar site in Toronto.
“Part of the reason for expanding here is the workforce we have access to and the partnership with REDI Cincinnati and JobsOhio,” he says, after introductions by Ohio Life Sciences. “They were able to quickly plug us into technical colleges” such as Butler Technical College. The company has seen value in investing in training, he says, including an on-site aseptic training center. The site has more than doubled in size over the past three years. “As we’ve grown, you see the need to invest in the workforce,” Matson says. The primary task is simply letting people know good-paying careers exist in such fields as operator or maintenance technician in this high-quality environment. “It’s a good, rewarding career, and it’s always good to know you’re doing something that’s positively affecting people’s lives,” Matson says. And there’s value to staying clean. “Years ago I worked at a place that made duct tape and I went home smelling like rubber every day,” he says. At Resilience, “I’m never dirty when I go home.”
Points of Light in Montgomery and Mason
Catherine Pearce, M.B.A., D.HSc., has over 25 years of experience focused on the biotech industry at various organizations. In April 2023, she founded JucaBio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company built on the hub and spoke model and staffed by experienced professionals. Before that she led a number of companies to commercialization and led the clinical stage biotech function of CinCor Pharma, Inc., from its formation through its acquisition by AstraZeneca for up to $1.8 billion in early 2023. At Deeper Roots coffee shop in Montgomery, she explained that JucaBio specializes in buying assets deprioritized by large pharma, sets up subsidiary organizations and moves those assets through proof of concept until they can be commercialized or an acquisition target.
Pearce first returned to the Cincinnati area from Philadelphia in 2015 to begin the activity she continues to do today: acquiring drugs, putting staffing around them, financing them and getting the attention of pharma. After the big sale to AstraZeneca, she says, “the team wanted to stay together. We all had job offers at AstraZeneca, but we liked this work.” And it can be invigorating. “We’re not interested in the 10th or 12th GLP-1, but would like to see a drug that spares the muscle loss from GLP-1s,” she says. “Pharma is quite risk averse. They’d rather see us do the moonshots.”
JucaBio has deep experience on its bench and knows how to deploy it. “We are efficient at floating people across these subsidiaries,” Pearce says, characterizing her team as foster parents for unloved drugs. “It’s very expensive to have someone with 40 years of manufacturing experience dedicated to one company. We’re putting little seeds in the ground and figuring out which can be harvested.”
One example: The company in 2024 licensed the drug behind AllRock Bio — ROC-101, effective for people with pulmonary arterial hypertension and pulmonary arterial hypertension with interstitial lung disease —from Sanofi. In September 2025 the company received $50 million in Series A financing and the drug has gone to Phase 2 clinical trials in 18 months. Pearce says drug development is global, “but I’m a Cincinnati region, love this region and I’m always trying to convince people to spend more time here and invest here. Our investors on the West Coast believe that too. We had someone visiting form a large fund in New York. They said they know the typical regions, and they were deciding what will be the next big biotech city, and they think this is it … The problem is we are very Midwest nice. We don’t promote ourselves. We are more than P&G. It’s a joyful city, a fun place to live, and it’s more productive, with not so many hours in traffic.
She describes the return to Cincinnati from Philly as an exhalation. “One day here, I went to dry cleaning, the DMV and the grocery store in 30 minutes,” she says, which prompted colleagues in other places to ask where she lived. “I said, ‘Cincinnati.’ ” Then she mentions a chief development officer for a pharma company in Copenhagen, Denmark. “He chooses to live here. His kids are here. He’d rather make the plane ride to Copenhagen.”
Flights to Europe are de rigeur for products made by AtriCure, a publicly traded cardiac device company that grew from a local startup into a global leader in atrial fibrillation treatment, with over 200,000 procedures performed. One of Cincinnati’s largest public companies, the company in August 2025 announced a $45 million headquarters expansion in Mason to double its facility and add up to 400 jobs. That’s where I met Salvatore (Sam) Privitera, J.D., who has served as the company’s chief technical officer since January 2017. In the company’s wide open reception area, in one direction sat a tray of sweet treats. In the other was an operating theater of sorts where sales staff dressed in lab coats were being trained on the company’s devices with pig hearts.
Privitera, whose name is on some 50 patents, was recruited to Cincinnati by Mike Hooven, the serial company founder who today leads another expanding company, Enable Injections, based in Evendale.
“I came and built an engineering team and recruited people into it,” Privitera says, “and we’re doing a lot to organically build our own talent. One of our biggest feeders is UC [University of Cincinnati]. Their co-op program is unique. Students will intern here three or four times before they graduate. By the time they do graduate, they hit the ground running.”
The vibrant, positive workplace atmosphere at AtriCure is as palpable as a beating heart, as everyone from offices to the shop floor focuses on ensuring quality before a device is requested by a doctor and then shipped out for a surgery across the country or across the ocean. That sort of vibe is powerful when it comes to attracting and keeping good young talent, whether from UC or other regional schools such as Ohio State University, University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky or Case Western in Cleveland. And when they get hired, they stay. “Seven VPs report to me,” Privitera says, “and four of them I’ve been developing since they came out of school. Those people now have 20 to 24 years of experience in a company that’s 25 years old.
“There are jobs you have to do, jobs you do and jobs you get to do. We are an organization where individuals understand we get to do this job.”
— Salvatore (Sam) Privitera, J.D., chief technical officer, AtriCure
“There are jobs you have to do, jobs you do and jobs you get to do,” he continues. “We are an organization where individuals understand we get to do this job.” Moreover, he says, “We do things that are unique and special. Mike could say the same thing at Enable. We don’t work on ‘me too’ stuff — most of what we create is novel. We tend to work on things that are unique and different here. It’s impactful, and we get to do it in an environment that’s awesome. Every day I drive into work and say my prayers and acknowledge how fortunate I am.”
Around half of AtriCure’s sales are driven by devices that plug into something, “so there is a tech aspect to that we have to be good at,” says Privitera. “A few years ago, we didn’t have the critical mass internally to have a whole software development team. Now we do. Half a mile away there is a company I could tap into, and another few miles away is another. Within a half-hour drive are three companies we leverage to help us.” Sometimes people on contract come to work at the company eventually. But you can’t have everything, he says. “Technologies are changing faster than they ever have, and to think you have all the skill sets you’re going to need in a couple years is myopic. I know I have access to what I need.”
The same principle applies to growing the business. “AtriCure doesn’t exist if it were not for the economic partnerships we’ve had,” he says, whether it comes via support from Cleveland Clinic in developing the company’s first technologies or from JobsOhio, the state’s Third Frontier program, REDI Cincinnati or the City of Mason in making facility expansion decisions easier. The company has a small engineering team in the Bay Area and clinical, regulatory and engineering office in Minneapolis, as well as a commercial office and distribution center in Amsterdam. When it comes to cost, Privitera says those other offices are essential to stay connected to those regions’ ecosystems, but “I can tell you it’s far more efficient to run engineering teams in Cincinnati. Our expectation,” he says while looking out the window, at the expansion site, “is to continue to grow here.”
Photo courtesy of Enable Injections
Enabling Growth
Enable Injections, the Cincinnati-area company behind the enFuse® On-Body Delivery Sys-tem (OBDS, pictured), has more than 100 patents to its name, attracted $30 million this year from Sanofi to build out its manufacturing and supply chain and is building a 90,00-sq.-ft. Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Springdale, Ohio, as well as making enhancements to its corporate headquarters in Evendale.
Chairman, CEO and serial founder and innovator Michael D. Hooven notes that “we’ve already hired this year alone over 65 production workers, and we have a total of almost 100 right now.” Hooven says he’s always been interested in moving across different fields in his career and came to the life sciences and medical device world with no experience. He was recruited from Los Angeles without knowing the first thing about Cincinnati. After a meeting, he says, “we looked around and said, ‘My gosh, the people here are so polite.’ ” Their host apologized for the traffic “and we said, ‘What traffic?’” Hooven recalls. “That was 38 years ago, and we’re still in the same house.”
Whether it’s recruiting leaders like him or developing technical staff, he says there’s something magnetic that attracts people from other fields. “What’s wonderful about life sciences,” he says, “is that once people get into life sciences from other businesses, whether it’s aerospace or automotive or software, they tend to stay.” — Adam Bruns
Delivering Today, Prepared for the Future
A Conversation with Lydia Mihalik
By Kelly Barraza
Site Selection Managing Editor Kelly Barraza recently talked to Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia L. Mihalik about the state’s competitive position, project successes, FDI attraction and talent advantages. Prior to her appointment by Governor Mike DeWine in 2019, Mihalik served as the 55th mayor of the City of Findlay in northwest Ohio, a micropolitan area that perennially is found at the top of Site Selection’s annual micropolitan rankings.
Site Selection: What are the factors that make Ohio attractive to business investors and employers?
Lydia L. Mihalik: We probably have four different areas in which we differentiate ourselves. Basically, we’ve built a system that works for economic development at every level. First, we are working hard to prepare for future opportunities. Ohio made some deliberate investments over the last several years — investments in infrastructure and site preparation so that we’re not scrambling at the last minute when a project presents itself to us. Ohio has landed some large projects like Intel and Anduril because we’ve invested in ourselves. We’ve done that through investing in our people and our infrastructure and our communities.
Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia L. Mihalik
The second big element of our success is that we operate as one team. What I think makes Ohio unique is that for large projects, we don’t go at it alone. The Department of Development works with JobsOhio, our local government partners, universities, workforce boards and, of course, our fantastic private sector leaders. When you have an alignment like that, it really signals to companies that we can not only attract investment, but we can deliver on it.
The third point is that we are winning in the right industries. Ohio has been very intentional and strategic. We’re not just chasing trends. We’re competing in sectors that matter for the long term — semiconductors, advanced mobility and aerospace and defense. We know that these sectors drive high wages. They help support supply chain growth and some long-term economic resilience.
The last piece here is that the top line is we’re preparing for future industries. Our strategy that we’ve been deploying now for several years really emphasizes that collaboration and readiness I talked about earlier. That’s ultimately what stands out in site selection decisions. We created the All Ohio Future Fund, which was found to proactively prepare large job-ready sites. We invested over $350 million across 11 sites statewide. We also developed an Innovation Hubs program, which is really helping to position Ohio as a national leader in not only commercialization, but applied research. We spent $125 million statewide and got some great innovation hubs up in Toledo, Dayton, Akron and Youngstown.
“Ohio’s micropolitan success is certainly one of the clearest signs we have that the state’s economic development strategy is working.”
— Lydia L. Mihalik, Director, Ohio Department of Development
Ohio frequently dominates our Top Micropolitans ranking. This year we had Findlay, Wooster, Fremont, Tiffin and Greenville all make the top 10 for landing corporate real estate projects in micropolitan areas. Why do you think that is?
Mihalik: Ohio’s really invested in the basics that matter to smaller cities. Ohio’s micropolitan success is certainly one of the clearest signs we have that the state’s economic development strategy is working.
We have spent the last several years putting more tools in place for communities outside the major metros, which includes site development. We’ve helped to expand broadband access, improve infrastructure and have done significant investment in brownfield remediation. Essentially, we’re helping communities become more market ready before an opportunity arrives.
The other key to our micropolitan success here in Ohio is that much of it comes from the traditional blocking and tackling or — as those of us in the business like to call it — business retention and expansion. In many of our smaller communities, the growth that we see isn’t driven by a single flashy announcement. It comes from existing employers that are already choosing to invest again and to add jobs as they deepen their roots in those communities.
We also like to think that our micropolitans offer a practical advantage, right? Micropolitans offer access to workforce and transportation and suppliers and nearby metros but at a much lower cost and with a lot less complexity.
Walk me through a big project win you have had in the past year.
Mihalik: The Anduril announcement was a game changer for us, particularly in the defense manufacturing space. It was one of the largest job creation projects in Ohio’s history. It’s 4,000 jobs and over $1 billion in investment. Just recently, the company started producing these military defense systems of the future. We think that this project helps leverages some strengths. Ohio’s got expertise in military support in federal missions as well as aerospace manufacturing innovation, which really made Ohio the ideal state for this effort. We were very jazzed about the fact that this really helps signal to not only us here in Ohio, but to others all around the globe, that Ohio can win next-generation industries — that we’re not just a legacy manufacturing state.
How important is foreign direct investment to the state’s economy?
Mihalik: Foreign direct investment from our friendly nations is extremely important because it helps diversify our economies. I can think of no other country that has had a more significant impact on Ohio than Japan. That was why, when Honda announced their new battery venture with LG a couple of years ago, those of us who have been in the economic development space for several decades were absolutely elated that Honda was again doubling down on its investment in Ohio.
From a workforce standpoint, how well do you compete against other states in your region and across the country?
Mihalik: The practical impacts of the policies that we put in place in Ohio are definitely seen in some of these job gains that have come to fruition over the last several years of the administration.
We have a couple of unique systems in place that help make that a reality. The Lieutenant Governor [Jim Tressel] just rolled out WorkOhio, which is this centralized front door for jobseekers. It helps connect Ohioans to not only jobs, but the training that’s necessary to complete them, as well as other regional resources.
The bottom line to all these things is that we’re building a ton of momentum in this state that’s going to continue to pay dividends. It’s going to continue to attract private investment, create jobs and improve the quality of life for Ohio and for Ohioans for decades to come.
