Industry Snapshot

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North Carolina’s primary industries include pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences; information and communications technologies; automotive; and plastics, rubber and related chemicals. North Carolina is an established, innovative and growing biotech center with over 200 pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract research organizations employing over 30,000 professionals. The state’s life science industry, generating approximately $7 billion in annual revenues and ranked among the top five biotech regions in the nation, is growing 10 to 15 percent a year. The state’s strong information technology base boasts leadership in telecommunications, banking and one of the highest ranked global high tech hot spots in its Research Triangle region. The state’s commitment to the life sciences industry is clear.

Created in 1959 by North Carolinian leaders from business, academia, government and industry, Research Triangle Park (RTP) is a public/private planned research park located between Duke University in Durham, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. RTP encompasses 7,000 total acres (2,833 hectares), employs several thousand full time workers and has capital investments exceeding $2 billion. The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1984 to encourage the creation and growth of high-impact companies in the greater Research Triangle area. Helping entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries and at all stages of development, CED provides an interactive forum combining the energies of many industry professionals to create flourishing entrepreneurship. With more than 3,500 active members representing over 1,000 companies, CED is the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center, providing long-term support to firms engaged in biotechnology research, education, development and commercialization, has set up the North Carolina Genomics and Bioinformatics Consortium of over 70 companies, universities and service organizations, specifically created to promote economic benefit in the state.

Biotechnology company specializations in the state include animal agriculture, biotechnology reagents, cell culture, clinical diagnostics, commodity chemicals, drug delivery systems, genomics, immunological products, medical devices, plant agriculture/genetics, production/fermentation, specialty chemicals, therapeutics and vaccines. North Carolina is home to facilities of many of the word’s largest biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Biogen, Akzo Nobel, Diosynth, Novo Nordisk, Wyeth and Baxter. The state has the world's greatest concentration of contract research and testing (CRO) companies, including four of the world’s largest: LabCorp, Quintiles Transnational, PPD and AAI.

The North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research seeks to promote the health and well-being of humans and animals through science literacy and workforce preparedness in the biosciences. The NC BioGrid project endeavors to research and implement new grid computing technologies, enabling researchers and educators throughout the state to take full advantage of the genomic revolution. The North Carolina Biosciences Organization (NCBIO), North Carolina’s state-level affiliate of the national Biotechnology Industry Organization, focuses primarily on legislative monitoring and lobbying activities at state and federal levels.

The state contains nine research universities, five exceptional medical and veterinary schools, and one of the largest campuses of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Thousands of university scientists and technicians at major universities in the state conduct more than $1 billion of sponsored research each year, most of it in the life sciences. Designed with input from leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology experts, the North Carolina Community College System has formed the nation’s first and leading comprehensive biotechnology training program incorporating an experiential learning program (BioBusiness), a 10 part seminar series (BioQuality) and a concentrated, competency-based training program (BioWork) which is recognized as one of the best bioprocess technician training programs in the nation.

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