Worcester County’s increase came as the state’s biopharma employment levels fell 3.1% in 2025, the first annual decline in more than two decades.
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Worcester County saw a net gain of 185 life science jobs in 2025, even as the number of people employed in the space fell across Massachusetts.
“There's a lot of things for us to be excited about,” said Jon Weaver, president & CEO at Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives. “Worcester continued to gain jobs in research and development, which has exceeded our expectations, and has one of the highest growth rates in the commonwealth for two years in a row.”
There were a total of 5,575 employees involved in life science R&D and manufacturing in Worcester County in 2025, up 3.4% from 5,390 in 2024, according to a Tuesday report from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. R&D added 195 jobs, while biomanufacturing was relatively flat, losing 10 jobs over the year.
Middlesex County did not fare as well, losing a net of 2,740 life science jobs. Jobs in R&D fell from 43,617 to 40,712, while biomanufacturing jobs grew from 4,392 to 4,557. Middlesex County includes the MetroWest region, as well as the global life sciences hub surrounding Cambridge.
Worcester County’s increase came as the state’s biopharma employment levels fell 3.1% in 2025, the first annual decline in more than two decades, according to MassBio.
Even after it had a large drop in National Institutes of Health funding between 2024 and 2025, Worcester’s UMass Chan Medical School continues to lead the state in NIH funding received. UMass Chan brought in $190.36 million across 345 awards, ahead of Boston University Medical Campus, which brought in $180.69 million across 282 awards.
The Worcester area continues to benefit from its lower cost of business compared to Greater Boston, said Weaver.
“The venture capital community is looking to make dollars go further,” Weaver said. “They're looking for companies to be more capital efficient, and I think what we're ultimately seeing is that you know where we're positioned is directly aligned with what investors and founders want to see these days.”
The city of Worcester has 54 companies who are members of MassBio, tied with Natick as the fifth-most of any municipality in Massachusetts.
Cambridge leads the state, with 429 member firms. Marlborough and Framingham both have 13.
Vacancy in lab and bio-manufacturing space in Massachusetts remains high, sitting at 31.1%, up from 2.7% in 2021.
Worcester has been insulated from what happened in the Boston area, where builders were racing to meet anticipated demand, only to see available funding in the space diminish, Weaver said.
“Worcester didn't overbuild, and I think we're making the case to the real estate industry as to why — if they're not building in Boston and Cambridge for a while — they should be building here, because our market continues to grow,” he said.
One hurdle the Worcester life science industry is looking to address is the relative lack of availability of funding for early-stage companies, as Weaver said funding has largely been flowing to more established firms.
MBI has been working to address this issue with its partnership with Worcester-based incubator Auxilium and through the support of The Wire Group, an angel investment group based in the city.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.
