ElevateBio’s BaseCamp Pittsburgh seen as model for growing US biomanufacturing

With the U.S. lacking critical biomanufacturing capacity, Waltham, Massachusetts-based genetic medicines company ElevateBio contends that its expansion to Pittsburgh is the kind of forward-looking investment needed to help create a national biotechnology and manufacturing hub in the city with a rich industrial history. 

ElevateBio’s BaseCamp Pittsburgh, a 125,000-square-foot facility which is under construction and expected to be operational in 2027, is where cutting-edge genetic medicine will meet industrial scale, according to new CEO Chris Murphy.

“What better place to industrialize manufacturing of advanced therapies, particularly cell therapies?” said Murphy. “The science is amazing. We’re all, as an industry, very proud of that. But we can no longer keep indulging in that. We must make these therapies cost effective.” 

Pittsburgh, which will serve as the site of the company’s second BaseCamp facility following its flagship location in Waltham, will be focused on the development and manufacture of cell therapies, gene therapies, and other genetic medicines targeting a wide range of diseases — as ElevateBio, which has raised $1.3 billion in total capital, looks to attain critical manufacturing mass.

Murphy said the fact that the company is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) has been its “best kept secret” over the last few years. Touted as a first-of-its-kind genetic medicine foundry, BaseCamp Pittsburgh will integrate technology platforms with end-to-end cGMP manufacturing capabilities to bring cell and gene therapies from concept to clinic with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

“What you’re going to see when we launch next year is a much higher level of automation and digitization,” said Murphy, who noted that BaseCamp Pittsburgh will implement artificial intelligence (AI), electronic batch records, and manufacturing execution systems to help “do all the repetitive work” where there is the most potential for human error.   

At the same time, bringing biomanufacturing to Pittsburgh — which ranks among the top 25 U.S. life sciences labor markets — means that ElevateBio will need skilled workers. The company expects to fill 170 permanent full-time positions at BaseCamp Pittsburgh — for half of those jobs, postgraduate years of education are not required, and a trade-school, community college, or bachelor’s degree are sufficient, according to the company.

“Do I need 10 quality assurance analysts that review batch records? No,” Murphy said. “But do I still need 10 people that are specializing in how we manage higher volumes of work? Yes.” 

Pittsburgh’s emerging life sciences hub

ElevateBio will be the anchor tenant at the University of Pittsburgh’s BioForge at Hazelwood Green, a former steel mill site. Murphy said ElevateBio’s BaseCamp Pittsburgh will occupy 70% of the BioForge complex.  

Thanks to a record $100 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and $150 million provided by the University of Pittsburgh, BioForge is envisioned as a center for creating breakthroughs in the development and manufacture of precision biologic medicines, as the city looks to position Pittsburgh as a life sciences hub to bolster America’s position as a leader in biotech innovation.

The growing interest of investors and early-stage biotech companies is fueling the city’s rise as a “robust cluster” with national implications, according to Megan Shaw, CEO of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance.

“There’s a real foundation of research and innovation in the life sciences here,” Shaw said, noting that the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University represent the future of where AI and biotech intersect — as well as robotics, automation, and clinical care. “What’s interesting is we have the development, manufacturing, and delivery all in one location and we’re seeing innovations across all three of those.”

The mission of BioForge is to enable breakthroughs in biomanufacturing that increase productivity and reduce costs, Shaw added.

With U.S. efforts at reshoring manufacturing, Murphy believes BioForge serves as a model for growing domestic biomanufacturing. “We’re building our site right where a Steel mill was,” he added. “Steel was there for 150 years and now this is the next industry.”

Challenges in competing with China

The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) took its “Biotech Across America Roadshow” to Pittsburgh last month, as part of its call to action for U.S. investment in biomanufacturing.

“While we are extraordinarily good as a country at early-stage innovation, we have historically struggled to commercialize and scale up those innovations,” NSCEB Executive Director Caitlin Frazer told the Pittsburgh audience.

With China aggressively pursuing a strategy to become the world’s biotech leader, the U.S. government must invest a minimum of $15 billion over the next five years, according to the commission created by Congress. NSCEB’s April 2025 report to Congress found that the U.S. lacks biomanufacturing capacity to ensure it maintains global dominance.

“Pittsburgh has all the right tools to leverage biotechnology to strengthen U.S. supply chains, create skilled manufacturing jobs, boost U.S. economic competitiveness, and help maintain our world leadership,” NSCEB Commissioner Dov Zakheim said. “This is economic resilience in action and is critical for our national security.”

Frazer made the case that the U.S. must address the “cost inefficiencies of the incumbent means” of biomanufacturing by adopting “advanced manufacturing techniques and the science of scale-up.” Those technological areas are where the country stands to accelerate opportunities for manufacturing efficiency, she added. 

Innovations such automation and continuous manufacturing “could change the paradigm for biomanufacturing” leading to “smaller, less expensive facilities that use modular equipment and cleanrooms to manufacture products at lower cost while using less energy,” NSCEB wrote in its report to Congress.

Murphy said ElevateBio is adopting automation to bring down its operating costs by as much as 50%, pointing to an Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) report which found that automated, closed, and digitized manufacturing processes are necessary to reduce product variability, decrease cost of goods sold, and achieve scalability.

“Anything that’s repetitive — and really basic — that we can eliminate or automate, that’s where we want to push,” Murphy concluded. “We think it’s a hybrid. Yes, you need to pick a very strong automation system to do the cell therapy step. But you also need to build your own efficient infrastructure in the factory itself as well.”