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New Jersey officials gathered last week to celebrate an important new endeavor: NJBioFutures, a public–private partnership designed to build up a workforce pipeline for the gene therapeutics manufacturing industry (NJBIZ). 
 
What’s going on: “NJBioFutures brings together experts from education, government and industry as well as community stakeholders to offer differentiated programs, state-of-the-art facilities and industry-responsive curricula to help build a pipeline in this space. Johnson & Johnson serves as NJBioFutures founding sponsor, with a $1 million contribution.” 

• Three colleges in the state—Raritan Valley Community College, Middlesex College and Mercer County Community College—will offer “training and certification programs on cell and gene therapy biomanufacturing, biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals.”
• The New Jersey Council of County Colleges will play “a key stakeholder role” in the undertaking.  

Why it’s important:  Over the next decade, the U.S. is likely to require some 3.8 million manufacturing positions to be filled—and of those, around half (1.9 million) “could remain unfilled if manufacturers are not able to address the skills gap and the applicant gap,” according to a recent study from the Manufacturing Institute (the NAM’s workforce development and education affiliate) and EY.

Commitment to workforce development: As founding sponsor of NJBioFutures, Johnson & Johnson “is committed to economic and workforce development in New Jersey and will provide more pathways into good-paying, high-demand jobs in an emerging life sciences sector that keeps New Jersey at the forefront of health innovation,” Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO Joaquin Duato said at the launch event this week.   

• In a statement, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the effort a “monumental workforce development coalition.”  

Our take: “The launch of NJBioFutures is a testament to the power of a public–private partnership and how, when companies dig in, local community and technical schools can lead the way in training key, in-demand technical skills and building the next generation of our workforce,” said MI President and Executive Director Carolyn Lee.