Atlanta boasted one of the nation’s fastest-growing life sciences labor pools between 2019 and mid-2022, according to a new report from CBRE. The city’s 20% life sciences job growth ranks it as the 10th fastest growing U.S. market, surpassing the national average growth of 13.7%.
Research & Development employment growth has been particularly strong. Atlanta ranked 4th nationally with a 44% growth rate since before the pandemic (2019). The city has approximately 18,204 people working in the life sciences industry, including 5,597 in Research & Development specifically.
The reason for Atlanta’s continued life science growth is twofold. The city secured $708 million in NIH funding last year, the 14th highest in the nation. Emory University received nearly $560 million of that total, followed by Georgia Tech with $50.4 million and Georgia State with $44.9 million. These universities also helped add to Atlanta’s life sciences employment base, producing some 2,000 college graduates in biological and biomedical sciences in 2020.
“While Atlanta is still an emerging life sciences market, we’re experiencing a few positive fundamental trends. The first is our job growth and the rate of local graduates with biomedical degrees. The second is our influx of NIH funding to local universities,” said Steve Barton, Senior Vice President with CBRE in Atlanta. “All of this, combined with new life science projects being built, puts us in a great position for continued growth in this sector.”
National Outlook
Several metrics point to the U.S. life sciences industry and the real estate that houses it proving resilient during the current economic slowdown. Among those factors: a growing total of clinical trials for new drugs, persistent job growth, more federal funding, and ample cash reserves for the industry’s larger companies.
CBRE forecasts that cumulative square footage of lab space in the largest 13 U.S. life sciences markets, already having expanded by…
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