After barely growing in 2024, biopharma employment in Massachusetts dropped 3.1% last year. R&D jobs dipped even more, by 3.9%. Biomanufacturing, however, went up.
Biopharma employment in Massachusetts dipped 3.1% last year, resulting in about 3,600 fewer jobs in 2025 than in 2024, the new MassBio industry snapshot report found, based on federal data. Employment had grown year over year for more than two decades, although there was only a 0.1% increase in 2024.
“The last few years tested this industry,” MassBio CEO and President Kendalle Burlin O’Connell wrote in the report’s opening letter. “The lagging workforce numbers in here still show the scars.”
While employment fell in 2025, many of the state’s largest biopharma employers have expanded their local headcount this year, according to the report. The most notable increase is at Eli Lilly. The pharma has more than doubled its Massachusetts workforce, from 540 to 1,423. Other noteworthy increases include those at Sanofi (+385), AbbVie (+326) and Alnylam (+269).
Recent BioSpace data for Massachusetts also highlights contrasts in the job market. During the first six months of 2025, there was mostly downward movement in job postings live on the BioSpace website. However, there was a mostly upward trend for the rest of H2, and that momentum continued through the first seven months of 2026.
R&D jobs fall, biomanufacturing jobs rise
There was a notable contrast between research and development (R&D) and biomanufacturing jobs in Massachusetts last year, according to the MassBio report. R&D was on the downswing, while biomanufacturing rose.
In 2025, Massachusetts lost 2,563 R&D jobs, a 3.9% decline that represented the steepest drop among major R&D hubs. Research and development positions fell in 2024 as well, but the decrease was smaller (-1.7%), according to MassBio’s 2025 industry snapshot report.
Last year’s research and development dip ranked Massachusetts behind only Maryland (-6.9%) and Washington (-6.5%) for jobs lost. California, New York and Florida were the only states that added R&D positions, at +0.3%, +1.7% and +15.5, respectively. Still, the report noted, Massachusetts accounts for more than a fifth of the U.S. biopharma research and development workforce (22.3%), making it the No. 2 hub.
While R&D jobs dropped by 2,563 in 2025, biomanufacturing positions rose by 238. The 2.4% increase followed two consecutive years of declines, including a 1.5% dip in 2024, according to the 2025 report. This year’s report noted that the reversal marks a possible turn for Massachusetts’ manufacturing base, one that came as the two largest biomanufacturing states saw decreases. New Jersey lost 1,440 jobs (-4.6%), while California lost 75 (-0.2%).
Biomanufacturing growth in 2025 was concentrated in the lower-cost challenge states of Florida (+3.3%), Indiana (+3.5%) and North Carolina (+3.4%), according to the report. Massachusetts’ edge, it added, is in high-value advanced-modality manufacturing rather than large-batch volume.
What’s next for biopharma in Massachusetts
Looking ahead, Burlin O’Connell noted in her letter that challenges remain for Massachusetts’ biopharma industry, such as a need for more consistent federal funding for innovation. She also highlighted that the FDA must become more modern, efficient and predictable. Her biggest concern, which she also referred to as the state’s biggest opportunity, is keeping the earliest startups with the riskiest science “and the brilliant minds behind them” in Massachusetts.
“We collectively, from government to the investor community to large pharma to MassBio, must do more of what we used to do: take the chances that could change the game for an entire therapeutic area or patient population,” Burlin O’Connell wrote. “Deliver the seed dollars, the wrap-around services, the policy embrace, and the physical infrastructure necessary for them to get from the lab to the clinic, from a promising idea to real data.”
“We’re on our way back,” she added. “Let’s keep moving.”
