Biomanufacturing is booming, and North Texas is building on its momentum as a rising force in biotech and life sciences. A new center opening this summer at Dallas’ Pegasus Park aims to train the next generation of workers and help startups bring cutting-edge therapies from lab to market.

The University of Texas at Arlington’s Institute for Biomanufacturing and Precision Medicine, known as IMPRINT, and Texas A&M’s Engineering Experiment Station—A&M’s research arm focused on engineering and manufacturing breakthroughs, called TEES—have teamed up to launch the biomanufacturing training and research hub.

The Dallas site is an extension of the original National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing in College Station, or NCTM2 for short. That first NCTM, operated by Texas A&M University, is a nationally recognized center focused on workforce development and biomanufacturing training. The new Dallas hub will offer hands-on training programs and lab space for startups and researchers working on biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other biotech products.

Inside the new biomanufacturing hub at Pegasus Park

Bridge Labs at Pegasus Park is at right with the campus’s 18-story office tower literally bridged to it on the left. [Photo: Mauricio Rojas]

The therapeutics center will occupy 5,003 square feet inside Bridge Labs, a 135,000-square-foot biotech facility at Pegasus Park. It will serve as both a workforce training hub and a resource for biotech startups.

The center is part of a broader national effort to strengthen the U.S. bioeconomy and reduce reliance on overseas pharmaceutical production.

“The growing bioeconomy is vitally important to the United States,” said Baley Reeves, director of the NCTM, in a statement. “Ensuring we have domestic production capabilities to provide a robust supply of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, biofuels, and other critical specialty chemicals and commodities is of utmost importance to national security and the U.S. economy. There is a need for skilled workers to support this field, and NCTM is poised to continue to serve the nation by providing a trained workforce to support domestic biomanufacturing capabilities.”

Training students and industry pros on techniques

The Dallas location is designed to address those workforce needs while expanding the A&M center’s geographic reach to serve more students and faculty across North Texas. It will offer “customizable, hands-on trainings to expose students and industry partners to topics such as cell culture, fermentation, purification, formulation, aseptic processing, and quality control,” according to the announcement.

Students will work with state-of-the-art equipment and train in a simulated current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) facility designed to prepare them for industry standards. It will also house biomanufacturing equipment to help academia and startup companies translate their discoveries into commercial products.

How the hub fits into Pegasus Park’s growing life sciences cluster

The new campus will be part of the growing life sciences cluster at Pegasus Park, which includes the BioLabs incubator and several biotech startups. The center is expected to spark collaborations with neighboring universities and institutions.

“The new center will support the TEES presence in North Texas while complementing, supporting, and enabling research already underway at Texas A&M University Fort Worth, the University of Texas at Arlington, UT Southwestern Medical Center, and other North Texas institutions,” Reeves said.

Robert Bishop, head of TEES and vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering, said the center will serve as a hub for cutting-edge research and workforce development for the biomedical industry in North Texas and a “beacon of innovation and collaboration.”

UTA’s IMPRINT fuels biomanufacturing innovation with state support

UTA is backing the new site financially. IMPRINT, which launched with funding from the Texas Legislature, is dedicated to expanding leadership in advanced biomanufacturing and precision health innovation. It was first funded by the Legislature in the 2024-25 biennium, building on $2 million in partial funding from the previous session. IMPRINT itself grew out of UTA’s earlier BioHealth Innovation Institute. In its 2024 Legislative Appropriations Request, the university sought $16 million to fully establish IMPRINT under its new name.

IMPRINT aims to build partnerships with industry while tackling unmet medical needs and giving students more hands-on learning opportunities. That mission brings together biomanufacturing, precision medicine, health data sciences, and entrepreneurship to advance biomanufacturing, improve health outcomes, and support life science startups, per the university website.

Jon Weidanz, senior associate vice president of research and innovation at UTA and founding director of IMPRINT, said the partnership with NCTM2 will help prepare a talented workforce and allow researchers to “develop, scale, and commercialize production of new bioproducts to help solve some of society’s biggest health issues.”

Funding the future of biotech workforce development

The NCTM2 center was made possible in part by a gift from Lyda Hill Philanthropies, which supports workforce development in the biotech sector.

Reeves said the team is eager to join Lyda Hill Philanthropies and others in the “great ecosystem” they are building to grow the biomanufacturing industry in North Texas.

Lance Murray contributed to this report. 

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