The Department of Commerce on Tuesday announced another $504 million in grants as part of its Tech Hubs program, but the Richmond region’s advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing hub didn’t make the cut.
The Tech Hubs program, part of the CHIPS Act passed by Congress in 2022, aims to identify tech-specific regions around the country outside of the typical technology epicenters such as Silicon Valley, Boston and New York and provide them with the funding they need to grow. The idea is to seed these hubs with federal dollars that can be used to leverage private-sector investment and snowball into larger growth.
In October 2023, President Joe Biden designated 31 tech hubs, including the joint region of Richmond and Petersburg for pharma manufacturing. Only 12 of the regions received funding on Tuesday, with most of them in the Midwest and West. And only a couple of them were related to biotech.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday the administration was pushing for more funding for the program so that all the designated tech hubs can get additional resources.
Richmond’s tech hub is being led by the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), an applied research center and nonprofit with membership from industry, higher education and government. The group seeks to accelerate the growth, innovation and sustainability of the U.S.-based advanced pharma manufacturing industry to re-shore safe and affordable medicines through hybrid and continuous flow manufacturing technologies.
“What [Tuesday's announcement] means is we were not as competitive as other hubs as garnering this investment, but that’s not bad news,” said Joy Polefrone, the regional innovation office for CCAM.
She said the tech hub designation has done a lot for the pharmaceutical manufacturing in the region and brought lots of groups together to work on building a resilient supply of pharmaceutical ingredients. The Commerce Department noted Tuesday that the hub program has attracted about $4 billion in investment commitments across the 31 different hubs.
In the weeks ahead, Polefrone said her group will meet with the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration, which is overseeing the Tech Hubs program, to receive feedback and refine its grant application for future opportunities.
She noted that while the program was authorized for $10 billion by Congress, only about $540 million has been appropriated. It is unclear at this point what the next phase of the program would look like, especially without additional funding.
“As we take next steps, the EDA has been really clear that they’re looking to engage donors, ventures funds and other sources moving forward,” Polefrone said.
CCAM is also a member of The Alliance for Building Better Medicine, a coalition of Richmond and Petersburg organizations working together to build a research and manufacturing hub for essential medicines and their ingredients. The alliance received a separate $52.9 million from the White House in 2022 to create a research and manufacturing hub for essential medicines and their ingredients.
