BioSpace NextGen honorees made up one-third of the U.S. biotechs that have publicly debuted in 2026. Most are looking for biopharma professionals to join their teams.

Pharma is definitely interested in making more deals. But what biotechs will come under the magnifying glass? BioSpace takes a look at companies that analysts see as near-term targets for buyouts.

Guest Commentary 

Since 2025, pharmaceutical companies have committed more than $370 billion to build manufacturing in the United States—a response to the threat of steep tariffs on imported drugs and to hard lessons about supply chains. If you have been watching for a hiring surge to match the headlines, you have not seen one.

That is not a sign the boom stalled. It is a sign of where we are in the cycle.

The cranes are up, but the scientists, quality specialists, and process engineers who will run these plants are still a year or two from being hired. The full workforce impact will not spike overnight, but be built steadily over the next decade, and the companies that plan for it now will be the ones ready when it arrives.

Where we are now: The construction phase

Across major life sciences hubs—Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas and others—large-scale pharmaceutical plants are under construction. Eli Lilly alone has committed to four new U.S. sites, one of them in Virginia, where Merck & Co. has broken ground on a $3 billion facility. That means demand right now is concentrated in skilled trades, project engineers, and project managers. The scientific process engineers, quality specialists, and regulatory professionals who will ultimately staff these plants come later.

This is a phased approach. Building a highly technical, highly regulated pharmaceutical facility takes years, and we are in the part of the cycle where the work is physical, not scientific. Companies and their talent partners need to know exactly where they sit in that timeline and plan against it.

While permanent facilities are years from operation, companies cannot afford to pause. Supply chain security was the original driver of onshoring. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how dependent U.S. drug production had become on overseas raw materials and capacity, and the lesson stuck.

Contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) are filling the gap today. With U.S.-based infrastructure, biosafety labs and scalable capacity already in place, they let companies meet supply chain requirements now, without waiting for their own plants to come online. For the interim period, CDMO partnerships are a strategic bridge, not a stopgap.

The longer tail: How onshoring reshapes hiring

When the new plants do open, the workforce they need will look different from what many expect. The era of large, labor-intensive manufacturing floors is giving way to automation, AI integration and what the industry calls “lights-out manufacturing.” The demand will land in technical roles: automation engineers, process engineers and regulatory specialists. Where traditional production lines remain, the goal is to elevate workers into more sophisticated roles, not to hire by the thousands.

Regulation deserves particular weight. Life sciences is a uniquely regulated environment. A drug must meet the same safety and efficacy standards whether it is made in New Jersey or abroad. As companies reshore, they face a dual challenge: deploying advanced automation while maintaining the compliance infrastructure that protects patients. Unlike chip plants or other sectors going through similar automation shifts, a failure in pharmaceutical manufacturing can directly harm the people who depend on the product.

The competition for this talent will not happen in a vacuum. Defense contractors, chip makers and biotech firms all want the same automation engineers. Life sciences employers will have to look beyond their usual talent pools, recruit from other regulated industries and invest in workforce development that moves current employees into more technical roles.

What could slow this down

Several factors could delay or derail these projects. Cost is the most immediate. U.S. labor is structurally more expensive than the markets companies are leaving, and while automation offsets that over time, the upfront capital is enormous—and it is being spent while existing operations still run.

Policy is the variable to watch. In April 2026, the administration imposed Section 232 tariffs of up to 100% on patented pharmaceutical imports, phasing in over the second half of the year. Crucially, companies with manufacturing plans approved by the Commerce Department pay a far lower rate while they build—a direct financial reward for onshoring, but one that depends on regulatory guidance still taking shape. The rules around AI in regulated manufacturing are evolving too.

Talent itself could become the bottleneck. If the competition for automation engineers outruns the training pipelines meant to supply them, companies may find they cannot staff the plants they have built. And timing is the subtlest risk of all: companies that run too lean during construction—cutting costs while waiting for demand—risk losing the institutional knowledge they will need when the ramp-up comes.

The case for aligning now

The companies best positioned when onshored manufacturing comes online are the ones building strategic partnerships today.

That takes patience and honesty about timelines. The money is committed and the buildings are going up. What has not arrived is the workforce, and it will not arrive all at once.

The opportunity ahead—in oncology, in GLP-1 therapies, in personalized medicine—is real. Getting there means building not just the facilities, but the people power to run them.

Luke Moran is the executive director of life sciences at Actalent, a global leader in engineering and sciences services and talent solutions.

The post Onshoring Is Here. The Hiring Wave Is Still a Decade Out appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.