Dallas-Fort Worth's continued momentum in the life sciences sector has positioned the metro to become a significant player on the national stage. 

While the region still trails life sciences heavy hitters like Boston and San Francisco, DFW has developed the ingredients to attract new talent and investors as startups move through clinical stages and begin scaling up their real estate investments. 

“From 2019 until now, there's been a huge shift in the reality of both local and external markets looking to DFW to see how ready we are to support healthcare, life sciences, innovation, and commercialization,” Y'all Street Bio founder Brad Phelan said during Bisnow's DFW Life Sciences Summit on Wednesday at the Conference Center at Pegasus Park in Dallas. 

One of the biggest drivers of the region’s life sciences growth has been the success of Pegasus Park. 

The development of the 26-acre Pegasus Park mixed-use campus by Lyda Hill Philanthropies and J. Small Investments in 2021 created an innovation hub for life sciences and biotech companies emerging from DFW’s top-tier research institutions.

Before Pegasus Park opened, there was a little bit of lab space available on the campus of the University of Texas Southwestern and a couple of places in Fort Worth, Phelan said. But Pegasus Park created a central space for companies to start building in DFW. 

And build they have. During the first half of 2026, DFW recorded a nearly 6% year-over-year increase in job postings, Cushman & Wakefield reported as part of its September life sciences update.

“We have to be realistic about what's going well, but also the things that we really need everybody to double and triple their efforts down on,” Phelan said. “One of the things that we have to do … is to continue to make it easier for those early-stage innovators to get the capital they need.”

Raising capital for life sciences is currently the hardest it’s been over the last decade, according to BMK Pharma founder Jay Bhaumik. However, that has created an opportunity for DFW, which benefits from a business-friendly environment and construction costs that are lower than in many areas of the country. 

The region has already experienced increases in its life sciences manufacturing market. 

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is building a radioligand therapy manufacturing facility in Denton. In addition, India-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Stallion Labs is developing a 200K SF headquarters campus in Mansfield.

Those investments are expected to attract secondary manufacturers that support pharmaceutical development and work with larger research and development firms. DFW will also be attractive to those firms because of its central location in the U.S., which allows for direct flights to either coast in about four hours, according to Kelly Cloud, the Dallas Regional Chamber’s vice president of economic development for life sciences.

The high number of family office investors in DFW gives the region a superpower that other areas of the country don't have. Several local life sciences companies got started because a local fund or family office was willing to commit capital early.

As those companies develop, many attract the attention of national institutional capital. 

Venture capital investment in life sciences rebounded last year across the country, and DFW was among the emerging markets that recorded the biggest year-over-year gains, according to CBRE. 

"Dallas and all of North Texas really have a great opportunity to be unique and to be really strong when it comes to capital markets, both early and in later integrated stages of healthcare and life science companies," Phelan said. 

While companies at clinical stages aren't investing much in commercial real estate, many firms in DFW are reaching an inflection point as their products have shown strong efficacy in Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials, according to Curve Biosciences CEO Ritish Patnaik.

Since those companies and many of their customers are located in the southern U.S., Patnaik said DFW is well poised to become a clinical and commercial hub for biotech.

"Now you're going to see a lot of the clinical-stage companies preemptively start building out commercial-stage facilities for production of their compounds,” Patnaik said. “Also they're going to need that accompanying office space for their wider commercial teams." 

As those companies grow, they will be able to find talent thanks to the higher education partnerships built by the region’s life sciences sector. The University of Texas at Arlington and Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station even opened a biomanufacturing training and research hub at Pegasus Park late last year.

Cloud said that’s not happening in other parts of the country. 

The metro’s continued population growth and northern expansion also offer life sciences companies opportunities to find space and scale their operations in multiple directions. 

"These systems are being put into place for companies to plug into and grow," Cloud said. "There's nothing but the sky as the limit."