The Rise of RVA’s Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Today, nearly all the active ingredients and/or starting materials for Americans' essential medications come from overseas, leaving us vulnerable to shortages. But not for long.

Using research commercialized through VCU Engineering's Medicines for All Institute, Phlow was conceived. Phlow is the trailblazing, public benefit corporation that’s re-imagining the essential medicine supply chain from start to finish through advanced manufacturing. In May 2020, Phlow was awarded a $800+M contract from the US Government to repatriate the manufacturing supply chain of essential medicines back to the US.

Hear the Phlow story from two of the brains writing it – Eric Edwards, Co-Founder and CEO, and Robby Demeria, Chief of Staff and founding Board Chair of the Pharmaceutical Cluster Accelerator.

This fast-paced story is getting better by the day thanks to the work of Jeff Gallagher and the Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and R&D Cluster Accelerator. This initiative is designed to accelerate the scale-up of a globally competitive ecosystem in Central Virginia focused on manufacturing critically important medicines within the United States.

The initiative – recently approved for Phase I of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge and competing for a potential $100M – is led by a multi-jurisdictional coalition of public and private sector stakeholders actively engaged in the cluster's R&D, manufacturing, workforce development, and supply chain development.

Hear about how the Accelerator is ramping up the Petersburg corner of the RVA region.