Known as the home of big-name companies including Johnson & Johnson, New Jersey has become a destination for more and more small and midsize life sciences businesses. Choose New Jersey, Grace Therapeutics and Onyx Equities executives discuss the state’s life sciences scene.
Once known primarily as a location for the Big Pharma side of life sciences, New Jersey continues to enhance its reputation as a place where smaller companies can start and grow. Located in the Pharm Country Hotbed, the state is now home to over 5,600 life sciences establishments, according to Choose New Jersey, a nonprofit business attraction organization.
It’s an evolution that Matt Flath, senior vice president of asset management at Onyx Equities, has noted. Onyx is the managing member of a partnership that owns the Northeast Sciences and Technology Center (NEST), a strategic innovation center offering over 2 million square feet of office, lab and support space. Until the past few years, Flath told BioSpace, New Jersey was lacking in the startup and midsize side of life sciences. However, he said, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) and the governor’s office have worked hard for almost a decade to grow that side of the industry.
Rachel Cohen, senior business development officer at Choose New Jersey, agreed with Flath’s assessment. She told BioSpace that New Jersey now has a unique mix of not only pharmaceutical leadership but also biotech innovation, research and academic partnerships.
“So, you’ve got these startups, you’ve got these established companies, you have everyone kind of jumping into what’s the next area of innovation, and I think New Jersey and our properties and companies that are here are primed for that next level of innovation,” Cohen said.
New Jersey’s big-name, established life sciences companies include Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in New Brunswick, and Merck, based in Rahway. Bayer and Novartis also have a significant presence in the state. Bayer’s U.S. headquarters is in Whippany, while Novartis’ is in East Hanover.
Smaller companies include Grace Therapeutics, a Princeton-based late-stage biopharma with drug candidates addressing rare and orphan diseases. Its CEO, Prashant Kohli, echoed Flath and Cohen’s thoughts on the shift in New Jersey’s life sciences makeup. Kohli told BioSpace that over the past 10 to 15 years, New Jersey’s ecosystem has come back strong, and more biotechs are starting up in the state.
Deep Talent Pool Provides Critical Talent
The state has much to offer to life sciences companies, noted Cohen, Flath and Kohli, including a talent pool that Flath called “deep.” He shared a statistic from Choose New Jersey’s 2024 life sciences report that New Jersey is home to more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the country.
A March 2025 Colliers life sciences report also noted the state’s strong talent pool. The New Jersey market in 2024 ranked No. 4 for its life sciences workforce, with 25,300 employees. Philadelphia barely edged it out for the No. 3 spot, with 25,341 people.
Research institutions such as the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Rowan University, Rutgers University and Stevens Institute of Technology are places where companies can find job candidates. Kohli noted that Rutgers’ pharmacy program, which is geared toward drug development, has been a great source of talent for Grace Therapeutics.
Collaboration Helps People Ideate, Solve Problems
Collaboration is another benefit of being a New Jersey life sciences company, according to Cohen and Kohli. Cohen said working together across organizations is made possible by strategic innovation centers like NEST, located in Kenilworth, and the Health & Life Science Exchange in downtown New Brunswick. These spaces allow collaboration to happen naturally in one site, she noted.
Kohli highlighted the value of New Jersey’s incubation centers, where entrepreneurs and scientists can cross-pollinate ideas. Networking events at places such as the New Jersey Bioscience Center are also helpful, he noted.
Regarding collaboration itself, Kholi said, “It really is meaningful in terms of sourcing new drug development ideas from what your other peer companies are doing. And if you run into any issues, technical or otherwise, there’s a lot of free-flow idea exchange and problem solving. I know our scientists have helped other scientists in the incubation center on a tricky challenge that they were stuck at, or they have helped us.”
Infrastructure Helps Companies Connect, Grow
Infrastructure is another benefit of being in New Jersey, according to Kohli and Cohen. Kohen noted that major thoroughfares such as the New Jersey Turnpike, Route 1, Route 33 and Route 206 cut across the state to facilitate easy transport. Cohen highlighted Amtrak’s Northeast Regional route, where trains travel through New Jersey to multiple locations including other life sciences hot spots like Boston, New York City and Philadelphia.
Having multiple real estate options for setting up and growing a business is also key, according to Kohli. He noted that scientists and entrepreneurs who want to bootstrap their businesses and avoid raising large amounts of capital at first can find affordable facilities that suit their needs.
“You know that you can scale from literally renting a bench to an incubation center,” he noted.
Kohli said Grace got its start at an incubator at the New Jersey Bioscience Center and added that companies can leverage such spaces and then graduate to step-out labs, as the biopharma did once it had a viable drug candidate.
Another option, which Flath highlighted, is NEST. He explained that it offers top-of-the line infrastructure and turnkey lab and biomanufacturing space to tenants in a market where capital efficiency and capital preservation are challenging. Flath noted that due in part to the uncertainty around National Institutes of Health and venture capital (VC) funding, companies that have experienced difficulty raising money are having an even harder time now. Given that, he said, the cost to build from the ground up or convert a warehouse or office to lab space is prohibitive to most early and midstage companies.
Raising capital has been an issue in New Jersey based on the Colliers life sciences report, which ranked New Jersey in the bottom half of 18 markets for VC funding in 2024. The state ranked No. 12.
A March 2025 Cushman & Wakefield life sciences report had similar findings, noting that New Jersey saw reduced venture capital funding in early 2024. However, there was improvement. According to the report, VC funding in the state hit $122 million in the second half of the year, up 38% from the first six months.
Looking Ahead: Industry Evolution, Growth
When considering New Jersey’s life sciences scene five years from now, Cohen pointed to the NJ AI Hub, a partnership of Princeton University, Microsoft, CoreWeave and NJEDA. Located at Princeton, the space is meant to foster innovation in artificial intelligence. Cohen said tapping into that resource will help life sciences companies bring out new novel drugs and FDA approvals.
“AI in general—research within AI and how the AI is utilized within the life sciences—is going to allow us to discover things faster,” she said.
When asked for his thoughts on the future of New Jersey’s life sciences scene, Kohli said he believes the industry will grow, noting that more biologics are being manufactured and research and development work done in New Jersey.
“The state has made some massive investments on these infrastructures where it makes it very viable for, let’s say, a gene therapy company or a cellular therapeutics company to start and set up shop here,” he said.
Want more job market insights? Subscribe to Career Insider to receive our quarterly life sciences job market reports, career advice and more.
