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Life Sciences are Flourishing in Kansas

When it comes to the life sciences, Kansas means business. Investment in the fast-growing field is making the state a top place for research, discovery, and production of new technologies to improve the health of people, animals, and other living things.

Q2 2023
Hill’s Pet Nutrition ribbon-cutting. Credit: Cory Keller
Hill’s Pet Nutrition ribbon-cutting. Credit: Cory Keller
Editor's Note: This article was paid for and written by the Kansas Department of Commerce and approved by Area Development.


Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and Lieutenant Governor/Kansas Department of Commerce Secretary David Toland have aggressively targeted growth in the bioscience sector with unrivaled support for world-class research, commercialization, business startups, and expansions. A strategic central location, robust talent pipeline, outstanding universities, and powerful partnerships do even more to bolster Kansas’ reputation as the ideal place to do business.

“Our life sciences sector is experiencing dramatic growth that’s made Kansas a bona fide hub for this important work,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “I’m proud of the infrastructure we’ve put in place that is fostering creative thinking and innovation to address emerging health threats and other critical endeavors.”

Achievements have been far-reaching. From the University of Kansas’ nationally recognized drug discovery and development enterprise to the selection of Kansas for the USDA’s National Bio and Agro-Defense Center (NBAF), the bioscience sector is creating historic opportunities for companies in the state. NBAF — a biocontainment laboratory focusing on threats to the U.S. animal agricultural industry and other public health research — is appropriately located in Manhattan, Kan., known as the “Silicon Valley of Biodefense” due to work to predict, detect, and prevent the diseases of tomorrow.

Our life sciences sector is experiencing dramatic growth that’s made Kansas a bona fide hub for this important work. Laura Kelly, Governor of Kansas Biopharma companies also are finding Kansas ripe for accelerated development of vaccines, treatments, and related supplies. Among medical and pharmaceutical firms gaining momentum, Scorpius BioManufacturing is building a new 500,000-square-foot facility in Manhattan. The $650 million business investment will create 500 new, high-paying jobs. The facility will support the development of vaccines that enable an accelerated response to global biological threats, as well as provide commercial-level development, manufacturing, and bioanalytical testing services at every stage for biopharmaceutical products to the global healthcare industry.

State partners such as BioKansas are catalysts for this success. Representing more than 140 Kansas bioscience companies, academic institutions, biotech centers and related organizations, BioKansas makes the connections needed to attract and grow bioscience technologies, products, and services in the state.

More enhanced collaboration came recently with expansion of the new KU Innovation Park at the University of Kansas. The new, 70,000-square-foot facility offers fully functional wet labs, offices, and collaborative spaces for its tenant startups. The KU Innovation Park currently houses numerous high-tech and bioscience companies and has created several hundred high-wage jobs.

Kansas also is a long-standing life-sciences force in the Animal Health Corridor — the single largest concentration of animal health interests in the world, and home to more than 300 companies researching and producing veterinary pharmaceuticals, specialized food for livestock and pets, and much more. More than 60 percent of the pet food sold in the U.S. is manufactured by companies in the Animal Health Corridor.

Kansas also is a long-standing life-sciences force in the Animal Health Corridor — the single largest concentration of animal health interests in the world.Also notable:
Kansas is home to a wide range of brand names and successful startups alike with companies such as Merck Animal Health, Hill’s Pet Food, TriRx Pharmaceutical Services, and Ronawk.Universities in Kansas offer numerous life-science degrees in human health science; animal and plant health initiatives; bioscience; and medical applications.More than 16,000 Kansans are employed in the biosciences.

“Thanks to our extraordinary talent pool, technologies, and academic centers, Kansas is a world leader in life sciences research and development,” Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland said. “We are showing time and time again that Kansas has what it takes to attract these highly innovative companies, and further improve our state’s cutting-edge life sciences ecosystem.”

To learn more about the exceptional assets Kansas has to offer companies in the life sciences industry, please visit kansascommerce.gov.

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