The Northeastern Pennsylvania Regional Bioscience Initiative (NEPA RBI), comprising regional economic development partners in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, educational institutions, governmental agencies and the business community partnered with AngelouEconomics to develop a strategy to expand the bioscience industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania and to develop the necessary workforce skills needed to accommodate growth.

Throughout the course of the project, AngelouEconomics assisted the NEPA RBI in identifying and developing a strategy to address a number of key concerns, which included:

  • Improving the entrepreneurial support system including the availability of early stage capital to fund start-up and expansion of Life Sciences enterprises.
  • Increasing the amount of research and development activity by building cooperation among institutions of higher education and developing regional sources of funds to help leverage grants.
  • Elevating education and training programs including better aligning federal and state training funds to the needs of Life Sciences.
  • Capitalizing upon regional strengths including metal working and plastics acumen.
  • More aggressively communicating NEPA’s advantages and successes within Life Sciences.
  • Ensuring that appropriate real estate land and building options, including incubator space, is in place to meet the needs of new and expanding Biosciences companies.
  • Working together better as a region to collaboratively pursue market opportunities.
  • Attracting and retaining more educated and trained workers in the Life Sciences field including recent graduates from area institutions of higher education.

Upon completion of the project, the AngelouEconomics team delivered a detailed economic development strategy focused on the Bioscience industry, and the targeting of several specific industry niches that ranged from Medical Tourism and Patient Mobility to Pharmaceutical Fulfillment and Logistics to Medical Data Storage and Animal DNA Forensics.

  • Market Assessment and SWOT Analysis
  • Target Industry Analysis
  • Reverse Site Selection
  • Cost of Operations Models
  • Action Strategy and Final Recommendations
  • Implementation Matrix