Our Region

Stretching from Manhattan and McPherson, KS to Columbia, MO, our region is building the future of biomanufacturing.

Home to 17 biomanufacturing companies and more than 5,500 employees, our region is powered by a collaborative ecosystem of talent, innovation, and industry. With four R1 research institutions, a two-state network, and over 125 consortium members, we’re working together to transform the KC region into a global hub for biologic development and manufacturing.

The KC region houses companies representing 56% of the global animal health market, producing 27% of the vaccines used in animal health applications worldwide.

Our human health biomanufacturing assets are equally as impressive. This region features one of the densest clusters of contract research, development, and manufacturing organizations in the world. We’re already the back office to well-known bio innovation ecosystems such as Kendall Square and San Diego.

Many of our local CROs and CDMOs were key in the development process during COVID-19, creating and running diagnostics, conducting pre-clinical work, and managing clinical trials. Our region’s massive biomanufacturing facilities produced 5% of COVID-19 vaccine doses used globally.

In terms of both animal and human health, the KC region is a research, development, and manufacturing powerhouse.

Our region’s focus on biologics and biomanufacturing precedes the CHIPS and Science Act. Yet our strategic decision to intensify focus on this critical technology sector remains fundamentally aligned with strengthening both our national and economic security.

Synthetic biology is a critical technology, recognized by the CHIPS+ Act, because our global competitors are rapidly advancing in this space. Offshoring of biomanufacturing has put the U.S. at risk, undermining national security, economic stability, public health, and even agricultural resilience in a region that feeds the world.

Our investment also comes at a time when biologics are becoming more prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry. These therapies will enable the personalized medicine revolution and are more commonly used than ever before. But making a biologic drug looks more like brewing beer than the assembly line of chemical synthesis that has produced pill medications in the past.

To meet growing demand, companies are investing in new facilities, and our region’s skilled workforce is ready to support their expansion. Biologics have never been more important or in higher demand—our investments are coming at just the right time for both the industry and our national security.

For decades, the U.S. has offshored the manufacturing not just of essential medicines but of everything it takes to develop, formulate and produce them. The KC region is changing that. With our robust CRO and CDMO cluster, and the collection of small- and mid- run manufacturing firms outside of Shenzhen on a per capita basis, we’re rebuilding the bio supply chain right here at home.

From bioreactors to glass vials, from adjuvants to excipients, small and mid-size businesses across the region are collaborating with the KC BioHub to retool and build a secure, resilient, and domestic bio supply chain. Our goal is to ensure that every input to a regional biomanufacturing process is produced by at least one firm within a four-hour drive of Kansas City.

In the world of pharma, the supply chain is not just physical, but service-based. Major pharma companies are “scaling out,” outsourcing research, development, and manufacturing to CROs and CDMOs across the region. The KC region already serves as the back office to Boston, San Diego, and other world-class ecosystems. In the aggregate, their capabilities and capacity rival those of WuXi Biologics, the world’s largest CDMO, and a foreign entity of concern. Our regional CROs and CDMOs have a long track record of working together to meet sponsor needs, keeping clients’ IP secure and protected.

As we seek to protect American IP and secure our bio supply chain, the KC Region is leading the way.