Workforce and Education

There’s no better way to see the power of manufacturing than by visiting a facility—which is why the NAM brought its Competing to Win Tour to INCOG BioPharma Services’ new state-of-the-art facility in Fishers, Indiana, yesterday.

A delegation including NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons, Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness and INCOG BioPharma Services President and CEO Cory Lewis toured the company’s brand-new facility and discussed the importance of advanced manufacturing.

The tour: The NAM’s Competing to Win Tour is a nationwide event that highlights critical issues facing manufacturers in the United States.

• Designed to raise awareness around manufacturing opportunities—and foster conversation between local manufacturers, employees, media, community leaders and elected officials—the Competing to Win Tour kicked off this year with the NAM State of Manufacturing Address from Timmons at Husco’s headquarters in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The host: INCOG knows firsthand about the challenges and opportunities in modern manufacturing. Founded in 2020, the company is a contract development and manufacturing organization that provides a wide range of pharmaceutical services, including drug development, clinical trial manufacturing and commercial manufacturing.

• In their new cutting-edge facility, which just opened last May, the company is creating sterile injectables and assembling devices to help their customers bring new drug products to market.

The panel: As part of the event, Timmons moderated a conversation between Sen. Young, Mayor Fadness and Lewis on the challenging environment facing manufacturers and the urgent need for solutions on issues like permitting reform, workforce development and tax policy.

• Young highlighted crucial investment in semiconductor manufacturing, saying, “We’ve just passed what is really a historic piece of legislation called the CHIPS and Science Act that will invest in emerging technologies that will define the 21st-century economy.”
• Meanwhile, Lewis discussed the importance of R&D to his company, in the context of a larger discussion about the R&D tax credit. He said, “My perspective is R&D is critical … there’s a lot of activity that happens on the R&D side, a lot of momentum that’s required to get that through.”
• Mayor Fadness talked about the importance of introducing students to manufacturing early on, saying, “I think there are opportunities to really tie [in] those connections [to manufacturing] from K through 12. I think we need to start younger and tie them back to this facilities and leaders like Cory at INCOG.”