From Quiet Powerhouse to Talent Magnet: How Indiana Can Compete with Coastal Life Sciences Hubs

By Jason Bork,  President and Founder, Pintail Solutions

My friend changed jobs, working for three different large pharma companies and I noted how tough that must have been on his family.  He replied, “Hard? Not really. I didn’t even change parking spots, I just turned left instead of right coming out of the parking garage.”

He lives in Boston. That line captures the power of a mature life sciences cluster. There are so many companies in a small footprint that you can change jobs, climb the ladder, even pivot fields without uprooting your family. Talent, capital, and ideas all circulate in the same neighborhood.

We’re not there yet in Indianapolis and across Indiana. But it’s not because we lack talent, ideas, or grit. We already have many of the ingredients to build a life sciences ecosystem that can rival the coasts. The question is whether we’ll fully embrace what makes us special while being honest about what needs to change.

One of our Midwestern superpowers is our mindset. Every day, I work with pharma, biotech, and academic partners across the country and across the world. What stands out about Indiana is simple. People here are kind, collaborative, and grounded. We listen before we talk. We look for win-win outcomes. We show up when it matters.

In life sciences, that’s not just a cultural nicety. It’s an advantage. Breakthrough treatments and technologies come from complex, cross functional collaboration. You need scientists, clinicians, regulators, data experts, investors, and executives pulling in the same direction over many years. Indiana’s instinct to collaborate, not elbow each other for credit, is exactly what keeps real ecosystems working over the long haul.

Where we fall short is not our values, but our pace.

Compared to the coasts, the business tempo in Indiana can be slow. Decisions take longer. Risk can feel heavier. We sometimes let promising ideas linger in endless reviews instead of making a clear call. On the coasts, the clock speed is different. Founders expect quick feedback. Investors are comfortable with high risk, high reward bets. Ideas move quickly, and if they don’t, they’re replaced.

That difference in pace matters most when it comes to capital. NIH funding for life sciences R&D has tightened across the country, not just in Indiana, so we can’t count on a surge of federal dollars to close the gap. Here at home, that makes it even harder for early stage companies to secure capital with the right expertise and risk appetite. Many of our best entrepreneurs still spend disproportionate time pitching investors on the coasts, or eventually relocate to be closer to where that capital sits.

That’s a missed opportunity. Life sciences already plays an outsized role in Indiana’s economy. From global pharmaceutical headquarters to device manufacturers and growing biotechs, the sector supports tens of thousands of high quality jobs and drives meaningful export and tax revenue. We’re not starting from scratch. We’re tuning and scaling an engine that’s already running.

The State of Indiana has a central role to play, not as a source of handouts, but as a partner that provides a leg up. Smart public capital can de-risk the earliest stages of company formation so that more of our breakthroughs are born, grow, and stay here.

We don’t have to imagine this in the abstract. The City of Fishers offers a real example of what intentional strategy can do. In roughly twenty years, Fishers has leaned into entrepreneurship and life sciences and emerged as a genuine hub. Companies like INCOG BioPharma, Genezen, 1Elevan Biopharmaceuticals, Telix Pharmaceuticals, and Quantigen Biosciences have all chosen to build there. Together these firms show how a focused local strategy can attract and retain serious life sciences employers.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness recently described a powerful idea. Indiana manages roughly 50 billion dollars in state employee pension funds. What if we invested a tiny fraction of that pool in Indiana life sciences companies and specialized funds, with rigorous governance and clear expectations for market level returns? Done well, that allocation wouldn’t be charity. It would be a disciplined way to align our long term capital with our long term economic interests.

In a healthy Indiana life sciences ecosystem, scientists at our universities spin out companies without leaving the state. Executives with big ambitions build entire careers here, changing roles as companies grow, without uprooting their families. State pension funds earn healthy returns by backing innovations that create the next generation of Indiana jobs.

Getting there will take coordinated action.

We need the state to create targeted co-investment and seed programs that crowd in private capital rather than replace it. We need local and regional investors to treat life sciences as a core pillar of Indiana’s future, not a niche. We need health systems and large companies to actively pilot and purchase from Indiana based innovators. And we need our universities and research institutions to view commercialization as a vital part of their mission.

Most of all, we need to keep our Midwest identity intact while turning up the dial on urgency. We can be kind and decisive. We can be collaborative and ambitious. We can move faster without losing who we are.

I’m optimistic about Indiana’s future in life sciences because the hardest part is already in place. We have talent, anchor institutions, flagship companies, and a culture that values partnership over ego. If we match that with bolder capital strategies and a faster pace of action, there’s no reason the next generation of life sciences professionals won’t be telling a different story.

They’ll say, “I changed jobs three times, advanced my career, raised my family, and never had to leave Indiana.”

Jason Bork is founder and president of Pintail Solutions, A life sciences strategic consultancy. We partner with organizations across the life sciences ecosystem with a focus on start-ups, biotech, and academia. Our team delivers deep experience across business strategy, clinical, quality, healthcare informatics, and organizational change.