DFW’s Life Sciences Sector Has Talent And The Room To Scale But Needs More Investors
If Goldilocks was selecting a life sciences hub instead of a bowl of porridge, she might choose Dallas-Fort Worth because it’s in a sweet spot with many of the ingredients needed to become a star in the sector.
The Metroplex trails life sciences heavy hitters like Boston and San Francisco, but its 4M SF of facilities offers plenty of space for startups to scale and partner up, according to panelists at Bisnow's The Future of DFW Life Sciences event Thursday at Pegasus Park in Dallas.
“This is kind of a Goldilocks zone where you've got to keep growing,” Health Wildcatters CEO and co-founder Hubert Zajicek said of DFW. “Collaboration can differentiate us from other cities that are a lot more entrenched and [have] a lot more turf wars.”
While DFW's life sciences growth has cooled with the rest of the nation, it has the infrastructure and talent needed to help companies scale their operations, LH Capital and Lyda Hill Philanthropies Managing Director Matthew Crommett said.
CBRE’s Life Sciences Talent Trends 2025 report found the metro has the fifth-most data scientists in the country and placed in the top 10 for most of the biomanufacturing and medtech occupations tracked.
DFW was in the middle of the pack for most of CBRE’s metrics, but it stood out in the ranking of ancillary occupations that can support life sciences manufacturing. Like Houston, Los Angeles and Chicago, the Metroplex has a strong supply of industrial production managers and packaging operators thanks to its extensive network of manufacturing, logistics and distribution operations.
New talent coming out of DFW-area universities will continue to fuel the industry’s growth, according to Heidi McConnell, deputy executive officer and chief operating officer at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
Her organization funds recruitment grants to bring researchers to universities across the state. Around a third of those are for schools in DFW.
“These recruits are not only creating labs at these institutions and making advances in cancer detection and cancer treatment, but they're also training the next generation of researchers,” McConnell said. “Medical students and Ph.D.s are learning from these brilliant scientists about what it takes to run a lab and make these discoveries.”
Capital sources and a pool of experienced entrepreneurs remain the biggest challenges for researchers looking to translate their discoveries into real-world impacts, McConnell said.
Life sciences investors used to be centered on the coasts but have started to make their way into DFW. But there’s still work that needs to be done to grow the metro’s investor base.
DFW life sciences startups are getting around 80% of their capital from outside of the region, Crommett said.
“We’re not mad about that — we need that capital,” Crommett said. “It’s smart capital investing in these companies.”
The pool of entrepreneurs is growing because of the startups that continue to pop up, McConnell said. The proliferation of new companies means serial entrepreneurs are now able to have their whole careers without leaving DFW.
“We're getting to that point now that it is possible people go from one company to another, from academia into startups,” Zajicek said. “Dallas-Fort Worth is exquisitely positioned to fulfill that role.”
Health Wildcatters has stepped up to help seed startups. The healthcare investor launched its HW Venture Center at Pegasus Park this summer to help local startups grow.
As life sciences continues to intersect with technology, artificial intelligence has become a major conversation for the sector, Zajicek said. The diversity of viewpoints within DFW's life sciences sector has helped startups incorporate the technology in new areas.
“I see this as a strength for our region that we have enough critical mass on AI to be dangerous,” Zajicek said. “We need to be completely thinking outside the box, and then true innovation happens.”
