A new report from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, or MassBio, identified an ongoing slump in the state’s life sciences industry.
The new industry snapshot , released at the end of last month, showed lower public and private funding, as well as a slight decline in hiring for biotech jobs.
Research and development jobs declined by 1.7% in 2024 and biomanufacturing jobs dropped by 1.5%; overall employment in the sector rose, but only by 0.1%.
The sector has seen increased vacancies in lab space — the new snapshot identified a vacancy rate of 22.9% in Cambridge and 38.3% in Boston — and funding has dropped.
In Massachusetts, one major source of money for the life sciences industry has been through the federal National Institutes of Health — in 2024, it had the highest NIH fundin