The long-term strategy that helped attract Eli Lilly and Company’s $3.5 billion manufacturing campus to the Lehigh Valley is drawing national attention from one of the pharmaceutical industry's leading trade publications. 

In a pair of video articles by Pharmaceutical Technology, Karianne Gelinas, Vice President of Talent Strategies at Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC), explained how years of workforce development and industry partnerships positioned the region to compete for its largest investment ever, and the largest life sciences investment in Pennsylvania history.

“We weren't doing this reactively. We've been working to strategically attract pharmaceutical and life science companies for years,” Gelinas said in one of the articles, “Why Eli Lilly Chose Pennsylvania for its $3.5B Facility.”

Gelinas explained how the Lehigh Valley appealed to Lilly because of its manufacturing heritage – which today represents 16% of the region’s Gross Domestic Product, well in excess of the national rate of 11% – and its network of colleges and universities and career and technical schools that are responsive to employers’ talent needs.

She noted how Lilly was particularly interested in plans by Lehigh Carbon Community College to update science facilities, equipment, and curriculum through collaboration with Wake Tech in North Carolina, which Lilly has previously partnered with to build a pipeline of workers there.

“That was extremely motivating for Lilly. It was definitely a piece that gave them a lot more comfort and excitement about how our students would be prepared with this new curriculum and equipment,” Gelinas said.

She highlighted how Lehigh Valley’s collaborative apprenticeship program, the Industrial Training and Education Consortium, is developing talent on apprenticeship tracks directly applicable to pharmaceutical manufacturing roles such as chemistry lab technician, mechatronics, industrial maintenance technician, and quality control.

Gelinas went into deeper detail on the region’s life sciences workforce in the second part of the interview, “How the Lehigh Valley Is Building Lilly's Workforce.”

She illustrated how LVEDC provided data to Lilly showing how many people with experience working in priority Lilly roles live within an hour’s commute: “Here’s the volume of engineers or bioprocess technicians or aseptic techs.”

“We’re really fortunate because we’re an hour from Philadelphia, two hours from New York City. We're between Boston and D.C. within that biopharma, biotech belt,” she said.

Gelinas shared how the region’s education network, from Lehigh University – an R1 research school – to middle and high schools are promoting careers in science and are scaling up STEM curriculum including through pre-apprenticeships. 

Pharmaceutical Technology publishes news and analyses for an audience of scientists, engineers, and managers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

(Rendering courtesy of Eli Lilly and Company)