Jefferson Bioprocessing Institute Aims to Feed High Demand for Skilled Workers

GE Healthcare and Ireland’s NIBRT will support the Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing, set to open its doors next year. The site in Pennsylvania will train around 2,500 people in biomanufacturing operations per year.

“There is high demand for trained professionals in the growing fields of biologics,” Debbie Goldberg, director of Public Relations at Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University), told BioProcess Insider.

Artist rendering of the site. Image c/o Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University)

As such, the education and training institute for bioprocessing has selected a site and will open its doors in the first half 2019. Once fully operational, around 2,500 people will be trained annually in aspect of bioprocessing, she said.

Jefferson has selected a 25,000 square-foot site located at the Spring House Innovation Park in Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Investment and funding details have not been divulged.

The center will be supported by the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), an Ireland Government-funded ‘flight simulator for biomanufacturing,’ which since 2011 has trained over 4,000 people a year from its site in Dublin. A joint venture was formed in February to bring NIBRT’s between NIBRT curriculum and training program to Jefferson.

Furthermore, the center will be equipped with single-use engineering technology provided by GE Healthcare, Goldberg added.

Other than NIBRT, there are a handful of centers around the world dedicated to bioprocessing training. The Biotech Training Facility in the Leiden Bioscience Park, The Netherlands is one. Indian drugmaker Biocon has also opened an academy to help plug the gap in biomanufacturing skill shortages.