PART 1 of 2: Manufacturing and Life Sciences Strengthen New Hampshire’s Economy and Supply Chains
When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everyday life globally, it exposed the fragility of long-distance supply chains. Reshoring medical manufacturing has been a priority since.
“We've seen the total life cycle. … A lot of these major manufacturers said: ‘It's too expensive to manufacture here in America. Let's do it overseas.’ But they still kept an R&D footprint here. We've now seen (manufacturing) come back,” said Kyle Reagan, president of DECCO, which specializes in biotech and industrial construction, maintenance and critical equipment handling. “It really got emphasized during COVID when America ran out of chemotherapy medicines because we weren't producing them here in America. So we've seen manufacturing come back in spades.”
The synergy of life sciences and advanced manufacturing has never been more important. In New Hampshire, manufacturing infrastructure is allowing life sciences companies to innovate, reduce risks and improve speed to market, all while strengthening the state’s economy and providing workers with better than living wages.
NH Life Sciences is reinforcing the industry by bringing together the links needed to design machines, build facilities and operate plants. New Hampshire manufacturers are producing lab supplies, medtech hardware, pharmaceuticals and more used by people in the state and globally.
Manufacturing in the Modern Age
New Hampshire’s economy has long been fueled by manufacturing, with hydropowered mills turning wood pulp into paper and cotton into cloth. While that spirit of hard work, innovation and industry remains, today’s manufacturing looks very different.
Gone are the giant buildings with rows of cacophonous machines, devoid of safety guards, spinning dusty particles into the air. Manufacturing for life sciences is often done in clean rooms, with compact designs and high precision. There is heavy regulatory compliance, detailed documentation and specialized testing for each step of the process.
“We started in 2001 and we design and build manufacturing machinery for life sciences and other industries,” said Peter Lehnen, president and lead designer at Lehnen Labs. “The life science industry has unique requirements for machinery.”
Lehnen Labs’s work is a few steps removed from the research and development of medicines and other biotech products, but it provides a foundational service to companies looking to produce innovations at scale.
“Life sciences incorporates so many things, from medical devices to pharmaceuticals and all the vertical components that go into making those,” Lehnen said. “We don't directly make equipment for making pharmaceuticals; for example, we build the machinery that builds the devices that are then consumed by the pharmaceutical manufacturers.”
The machines that Lehnen designs and builds produce vessels for growing viruses, single-use bags, tubing and filters.
Much of the work behind the designs Lehnen Lab makes for other companies is covered by non-disclosure agreements. However, it was able to share that fellow NH Life Sciences member Millipore Sigma hired them to design a fully automated and programmable tubing cutter that could be adjusted for various diameter tubes. Lehnen’s device can complete upwards of 10,000 cuts without replacing the blade.
There can be a lot of back and forth with machine designers and manufacturers to get the process just right.
“When you're designing custom machinery, there's a process, and it really hasn't changed a lot at its core. The customer has a pretty good idea of what they need to accomplish. Then they will go to companies like ours, which have experience in designing and building machinery. We will propose a way to do it,” Lehnen said. “This is a back-and-forth, an iterative process, that goes on until you settle down on a particular specification.”
Being close to clients who will use your machines can help facilitate more in-person development during the process.
“We're so close to the Boston life sciences corridor, so we're considered very local,” Lehnen said. “There's not a lot of the kind of resources we provide in the area. Companies typically have to go to the Midwest, Pennsylvania or New Jersey for this type of capability. NH Life Sciences can promote that this type of capability exists in the state and that people don't have to go far to get first-class support for their manufacturing processes.”
New Hampshire Provides a Launchpad for Growth
Over nearly four decades, Resonetics, a Nashua contract design and manufacturing organization(CDMO), has grown to 17 facilities across the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, Israel and Switzerland. Each site is focused on specific manufacturing or product development capabilities and strategically located to service the medtech industry.
“What we do is we help our customers design, manufacture and scale novel medical technology,” said Keven Kelly, president of Resonetics. “The categories where we provide the most value are exciting: neurovascular neurosurgery, robotic-assisted surgery, glucose monitoring, structural heart (valve repair), and electrophysiology (treating AFib).”
The company is setting its sights on immense growth while taking stock of opportunities and challenges.
“We are one of the largest CDMOs in this space, and our plan is to double the size of the business,” Kelly said. “Actually, in the next three years, we’re looking to grow 50%. We have a plan to grow to $1 billion in sales.”
Kelly said that access to customers is one of the challenges the company faces, since most of its clients are located in places like California, Minneapolis and Ireland. It has mitigated that challenge by operating sites nearby, while keeping a central headquarters in the Granite State.
“I think people overlook it, but we have proximity to Europe,” Kelly said. “There are a lot of decisions being made in Europe, particularly in Ireland.”
New Hampshire’s tax policy, ample facility capacity, proximity to transportation from Manchester and Logan airports, and the overall vibrancy of life sciences in New Hampshire make the location attractive.
However, access to talent is particularly important to Resonetics during its growth efforts. Kelly said the company never struggles to hire workers for its Nashua location.
“All the functions – whether it be finance, IT, quality, supply chain, operations, engineering – we have to recruit those roles, and we can find talent in this area,” Kelly said. “So that's number one, because I have to tell you, if I go out to California and try to do that, it’s very hard, very competitive, it's very expensive, and there's typically higher turnover.”
Other benefits of locating life sciences manufacturing in the United States, including New Hampshire, include avoiding increasing tariffs on overseas products, shorter lead time in getting products to a U.S. market and proximity to regulatory agencies that can help streamline the FDA approval process. These qualities can remove some of the unpredictability from the production cycle.
While advanced manufacturing and life sciences find lots of perks to locating in New Hampshire, that relationship is symbiotic.
Careers in advanced manufacturing and biotech have livable wages, some 60% to 80% higher than the state’s average salaries. They also contributed $8.3 billion and $2.8 billion to the state’s gross regional product, respectively, according to 2022 state data.
As NHLS works to build connections between its members and the wider life sciences ecosystem, it forms a more resilient manufacturing supply chain and more robust state economy. When Granite State companies need supplies or expertise to create life-saving products, help is here, close to home and ready to grow.
To learn more about NHLS’s membership opportunities, visit nhlifesciences.org.
NH Life Sciences members are developing workforce training programs for life sciences manufacturing to ensure that skilled employees are available when it’s time for companies to grow. Learn more in Part Two, coming soon.