Unfortunately, there are a lot of assertions floating around that tell a misleading story about pharmaceutical manufacturing, diminishing America’s leadership and suggesting our reliance on other countries has put us at risk of potential shortages. In reality, a lot of manufacturing occurs right here in the United States.
The biopharmaceutical industry has a robust, growing presence in the United States – especially when it comes to manufacturing. Because of its large supply chain, the biopharmaceutical industry supports more than 4 million jobs across the United States, directly employing more than 811,000 Americans. Of those jobs, nearly 120,000 are high-wage manufacturing jobs, which is double the percentage of manufacturing jobs compared to the private sector overall. In 2017, wages for biopharmaceutical manufacturing jobs were 72% greater than the average wage for all U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Biopharmaceutical manufacturing jobs are housed at more than 1,300 facilities across the United States, contributing to the national economy and local economies – and investments in these facilities continues to grow.
Between 2000 and 2016, biopharmaceuticals outpaced all other manufacturing sectors in U.S. economic output growth. And in the past two years, biopharmaceutical companies have announced plans to invest more than $27 billion in the United States, including new manufacturing plants.
Part of ensuring the stability of our manufacturing supply chain is geographic diversity, which includes a robust manufacturing presence in the United States. We cannot overlook just how much manufacturing happens here and the economic impact that has on our economy. Discussions about enabling more manufacturing in the United States are important, but let’s not forget that the United States already sustains a substantial manufacturing presence that is part of a larger global network. We cannot replace all global manufacturing with solely U.S. manufacturing without upsetting the entire biopharmaceutical supply chain to the detriment of patients.
