U.S. News: Boston's Biotech Engine Is Sputtering --- Cutbacks in venture capital, government funding have dried up job opportunities

“CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Jeremy Liew, 31, moved to Boston from New Jersey in 2018 to study for a Ph.D. in chemistry and, he hoped, a career in the city's bustling biotech industry.

 

But after earning his University of Massachusetts Boston degree last year, Liew said he has applied to about 500 local jobs with no luck. Born in Hong Kong, he said he has also started considering LinkedIn messages from biotech recruiters much farther away.

 

"The industry really is booming in China, and that's what a lot of people have told me, that I should consider applying there," Liew said.

 

Boston's biotech sector, long a vital economic engine for one of America's wealthiest metro areas, is sputtering. A double whammy of cutbacks in venture capital and government funding have taken a toll, leading to layoffs and struggles for job seekers.

 

For workers who thought they would easily launch into a well-paying science career, the downturn has been especially harsh.

 

Liew temporarily signed up for government food assistance, kept a tight budget and later started working part time for an artificial-intelligence startup so he could continue to afford rent in a Boston suburb.

 

Massachusetts experienced a slight decline in its roughly 65,000 biotech research-and-development jobs in 2024 after years of mostly strong increases, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to federal data. The numbers indicate that job losses continued through at least June, while hiring remains sluggish.

 

By the end of September, nearly 28% of greater Boston's laboratory space sat empty, according to the latest estimates from real-estate firm CBRE.

 

"Every stage of the life cycle has been impacted by policy or regulatory uncertainty this year," said Kendalle Burlin O'Connell, chief executive of MassBio, an industry trade group. The impact has hit startups especially hard, she said.

 

A continued downturn poses risks for a region where workers will put up with sky-high real-estate costs if they can land high-paying jobs. Massachusetts faces competition from other states and China, which are eager to peel away talent and investment.

 

"There are states and countries chasing us every single day," Gov. Maura Healey said.

 

In late October, the Democrat testified before the Massachusetts legislature in support of a $400 million "competitiveness agenda" that she is seeking to spur new investment and supplement research funding lost this year. Lawmakers are reviewing the bill, a House spokesman said.

 

Biotech is an integral part of Boston's economy. Offices and laboratories from big-name companies and startups dot the region, clustered near universities churning out research and future employees. Developers bet that demand would keep soaring during the Covid-19 pandemic and added millions of square feet of space.

 

Then came the cool-down. Interest rates soared as the pandemic faded. Venture-capital funding slowed, hitting in the first half of 2025 the lowest point since the same period in 2017, according to MassBio.

 

Statewide, the average seed round was $7.7 million in the first half of 2025, down about 31% from the average three years ago, MassBio reported.

 

"There was so much money that the sector got overbuilt," said Alexis Borisy, founder of Boston-based Curie.Bio, a biotech venture firm. "If there was a good idea, there'd be 10 companies all built at the same time to go do it."

 

On the federal front, the Trump administration has terminated tens of millions of dollars in active grants in Massachusetts this year, according to Grant Witness, an independent group of researchers tracking grant terminations and reinstatements by government science agencies.

 

Also, while Massachusetts gets the most National Institutes of Health funding of any state on a per capita basis, changes are afoot. The NIH announced a strategy in November to promote "broad distribution and geographic balance" by spreading around future research funding.

 

In Kendall Square, the life-sciences hub tucked next to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, 17% of lab space in the neighborhood sat vacant this September, according to CBRE. There was barely any vacancy there -- just 0.4% -- in 2021.

 

The neighborhood has lost vibrancy, said Andy Husbands, who said he closed the Kendall Square location for his local restaurant chain, The Smoke Shop BBQ, in mid-2024.

 

Hit by a private funding crunch, Bolden Therapeutics, a small research-stage company working on neurological treatments, laid off two employees a year ago and another this past summer.

 

The Kendall Square-based company plans to move back to Providence, R.I., by year-end, said Johnny Page, the co-founder and chief executive.

 

In Boston, real-estate developer IQHQ this past fall paused plans to build two lab-filled towers atop a platform over the Massachusetts Turnpike while it looks for tenants. In nearby Somerville, construction of a nine-story life-sciences building has been on hold since July 2024.

 

Pierce Cousins hoped to quickly land a job in Boston's biotech industry after graduating from Harvard University with a bioengineering degree in May. He kept applying for Massachusetts-based jobs, and said he was "dead set" on working in the life-sciences hot spot.

 

In November, he landed a sales-representative job with Salesforce in San Francisco.” [1]

 

1. U.S. News: Boston's Biotech Engine Is Sputtering --- Cutbacks in venture capital, government funding have dried up job opportunities. Mitovich, Jared.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Dec 2025: A3.