Industry Outlook 2026: Biopharma Industry Confronts Skills Shortage with Strategic Automation (Part 2)

*Full transcript available below

Biopharmaceutical manufacturing has entered 2026 with a mounting workforce crisis that directly threatens global capacity, Eric Langer, president and managing partner of BioPlan Associates, stresses in an interview with BioPharm International®. For more than 15 years, hiring difficulties have been a major constraint, and current data from BioPlan Associates’ annual biopharma study (1) show that the situation is not improving.

The industry’s rapid growth—especially in advanced modalities like cell and gene therapies and viral vector manufacturing—is outpacing the supply of skilled professionals needed to run and scale these operations, according to Langer.

Today, he notes, a significant share of facilities cannot fill critical roles:

• 36% of respondents in the study report that they are unable to hire process development staff.
• 28% struggle to hire downstream production personnel.
• 27% of respondents lack sufficient process engineers.

These gaps directly impact the ability to develop, optimize, and expand bioprocessing capacity.

“Hiring difficulties are creating capacity constraints across the board and across regions,” Langer states.

Is the United States at greater risk when it comes to bioprocessing talent?

Despite bioprocessing being a global industry, the United States may be uniquely exposed, Langer observes. Only 28% of the world’s biopharmaceutical manufacturing staff are based in the US, while 72% are located elsewhere.

Historically, companies have relied on international talent to offset local shortages, Langer emphasizes. However, US policies and visa restrictions (2) are increasingly limiting access to skilled professionals, including experienced European bioprocessing experts, further tightening the labor market, he explains.

At the same time, industry priorities are shifting. Long-running surveys indicate that the strongest demand for innovation is now in continuous upstream automation, Langer notes.

While lower-cost single-use devices—such as single-use bioreactors, probes, bags, and connectors—remain important, current offerings are largely meeting market needs. As a result, suppliers are being pushed to focus R&D investment on advanced automation solutions that boost efficiency, reduce dependence on scarce labor, and future-proof biomanufacturing capacity.

Click here for part 1 of Langer’s interview.

References

1. BioPlan Associates. 22nd Annual Report and Survey of Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing and Capacity. bioplanassociates.com. April 2025.
2. US Department of State. Visa Bulletin For January 2026. travel.state.gov (accessed Jan. 20, 2026).

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Speaker 1

We've seen hiring difficulties as one of the major constraints in biopharmaceutical manufacturing over the last 15 and more years. And the thing is, these are not improving. Hiring difficulties are creating capacity constraints across the board and across regions.

When we look at the data that we developed since 2011 in fact, we see that it's consistently a challenge to hire staff, partly because the industry is growing faster as faster than new hires can be brought on board. And partly because the innovations that are emerging in biopharmaceuticals like cell and gene therapy, viral vector manufacturing, etc, and some of the more advanced therapies, just plain, don't have that level of expertise in the workforce, so they need to be developed.

And a lot of this development just plain doesn't exist. So we're seeing today, for example, 36% of the facilities out there are unable to hire their process development positions.

This is a real problem. If you can't develop your process, capacity is going to suffer. 28% can't hire the downstream production staff, this has been a problem for years, and they're 27% do not have enough process engineers. And these are just a few of the areas where we challenges in actual global hiring.

We see this across the board, but we see this today as a big problem in staffing with within the US. When we look at staffing problems, my question today is, is the US at a greater risk? Bio processing is really pretty global, and candidates come from all regions really.

And when we look at our top 1000 bio database of bio pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity across the board, across regions around the world, we see that about 28% of the manufacturing staff exist in the US. What that means is that 72% of the world of the staff is somewhere else, outside the US.

So if we are experiencing a hiring challenge, then in the past, what we've seen is that the rest of the world, because let's face it, biopharma is really a global industry. Doesn't matter if you're in Europe or in the US or elsewhere, your staff may very well be coming from another region, and part of the value of that is that you'd be you're given the opportunity to when you do have hiring challenges, to bring people in from other areas.

But here's the problem is the US challenges from policies, visas, etc, may be reducing the international tech availability and access to, for example, European expertise.

Speaker 1

The key here from our annual report is some of the questions we ask are, what new product development areas should suppliers be focusing their development on? Which goes to your issue of where the innovations exist.

And what we found is that the areas where the demand for innovation is strongest today, and we measure this now for 15 years, is increasing the focus on continuous upstream automation. In other words, there are a lot of different areas lower cost, single use devices, but the one that really stands out is automation and continuous upstream.

There's a declining focus on areas like lower cost single use single use probes, single use bioreactors, bags and connect connectors. This is not because, and it's important to note that this is not because people are saying, we don't need those things. What it means is that the industry is providing sufficient innovation necessary in these areas to meet the needs of the industry right now.