Bioversity at Six Months: Dramatic Impact, Lots of Room for Growth

Jul 15, 2024

By Zach Stanley, Executive Director, Bioversity

Students in lab coats in a lab setting.
Bioversity students in the lab.

In the late summer of 2022, the MassBio leadership team was invited by Beacon Capital Properties to visit their redeveloped life sciences campus in Dorchester, Southline Boston, to talk about the prospect of MassBio opening and running a workforce training center in their building.

At the time, the future Bioversity space looked like this:

A photo of a mostly empty room under construction with random equipment strewn about.

After the visit, the MassBio team, including me in my former role as Chief of Corporate Affairs, decided this opportunity was too good to pass up.  We couldn’t miss the chance to create career pathways for people traditionally left behind by the life sciences. This was also a way for MassBio to respond to our members’ longstanding need for talent by deepening and diversifying the pipeline.

We quickly developed the guiding principle to drive us forward: train people quickly and at scale to supplement the existing workforce and educational systems in Massachusetts. And from there, it’s been a non-stop sprint. 18 months meeting with biopharma employers to find out if and where entry-level talent demand lies for people with only a high school degree and no biotech experience. 15 months developing curriculum in partnership with our friends at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. 12 months building out the 4,000 square foot training space including lab and classroom. 9 months creating community in Dorchester and the surrounding neighborhoods to learn what prospective students want out of a training program and how we could best address barriers to participation, graduation, and employment. And 3 months recruiting our first class.

Bioversity’s doors opened on January 8th, 2024 to our first cohort of 18 students. I’m proud to say that from the start, we met our mission of intentionally recruiting underrepresented and low-income students from Boston neighborhoods and surrounding communities. In the first class, 78% were Boston residents, 100% identified as either Black or Latino (or both); 56% were female, and the average age was 31. Incoming students’ annual income prior to enrolling in Bioversity was $26,400, far below the poverty line in Boston.

A posed photo of graduates wearing medals with red ribbons signifying their accomplishment. Bioversity leadership is also in the photo, which is taken in front of a Bioversity logo backdrop.
Bioversity graduation. (Photo by John Wilcox)

Our first cohort graduated on February 29th and since then we have enrolled and graduated two more cohorts for a total of 43 graduates in six months. Graduates are getting placed into a range of early career scientific operations roles with titles like Lab Support Technician, Logistics Technician, Manufacturing Associate, Molecular Technician Associate, Senior Site Specialist, and more, at top companies including abcam, Flagship Lab Services, Foundation Medicine, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Vertex. These are not only jobs but the start of a career path.

The best part: our student’s average annual income of $28,000 soars to $56,000 after graduation and placement; and these jobs include full benefits allowing our graduates to build wealth through 401k’s and improve health outcomes for them and their families through great health insurance.

Yet, Bioversity’s journey has not been straightforward. We’ve learned a lot in six months:

  • Students enrolling in Bioversity are not desperate for a job. They want training to get into the biotech field, but they want to find a job that is right for them. We’ve had numerous graduates turn down offers.
  • External circumstances can dictate job placements more than we had hoped. Access to childcare on short notice to work full-time. A driver’s license and access to a car. Shift work not aligning with school schedules. There are real life factors that force decisions on whether or not to accept a job.
  • Building employer trust is a journey. It takes many internal champions. And it takes time.
  • Companies want to help, but when it comes to hiring, cold, hard economics often get in the way. If there isn’t a FTE open, that company can’t hire no matter how much they like us and our graduates.
  • Once an employer hires a Bioversity graduate and sees them in action, they come back for more.

The beauty of running an 8-week training program is that we can adjust quickly on the fly. We are constantly revising our teaching curriculum based on employer feedback. We have updated the student résumé template three times over three cohorts to better suit employer expectations in the job market. We have added in more interview prep for our students as part of the program. And we are always building more capacity for our career placements services.

Looking ahead, the future of Bioversity is bright. We have built a strong foundation of financial support from the City of Boston and the Massachusetts Life Science Center through their grant programs. We have received more than 940 student applications. And our employer partner base continues to grow. We have our 4th cohort training now and the 5th launching in September. 2025 is more of the same.

Bioversity’s mission is to blaze training pathways and create employer connections for underrepresented populations and individuals traditionally left out of the life sciences to quickly propel them into well-paying jobs and lifelong careers. We aspire to an equitable life sciences industry that reflects the patient communities it serves and delivers career opportunities to all who want them.

I’m proud to say we are meeting our mission and on track to keep doing so. But we can only grow and be a sustainable organization with more private financial support, more employee partners, and more student applications. Next year we’re planning to train, graduate, and place an additional 60 students and look to grow our impact regionally. Join me on this gratifying journey by supporting Bioversity.

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