New Brunswick Biotech Executive Robert Kim Leads Breakthrough Drug Manufacturing Deal

Robert Kim, chief executive of New Brunswick-based contract drug manufacturer BioForge, announced a landmark manufacturing agreement this week to produce a widely anticipated biologic therapy for a major pharmaceutical partner, a deal Kim says will roughly triple BioForge's production capacity over the next two years.

Kim founded BioForge twelve years ago as a small-scale contract manufacturer serving early-stage biotech companies unable to build their own production facilities. The company has since grown into one of the largest independent biologics manufacturers in the state, benefiting from New Jersey's deep bench of pharmaceutical manufacturing talent built up over decades of major drugmaker operations in the region.

"New Jersey has this enormous, somewhat invisible advantage — a workforce that has spent generations learning how to manufacture complex biologics at scale," Kim said. "When a partner needs a manufacturing deal executed correctly on a tight timeline, that experience is worth more than a cheaper facility somewhere without it."

The new agreement will require BioForge to add a second manufacturing suite at its New Brunswick campus, a $140 million expansion expected to create roughly 220 new manufacturing and quality control jobs. Kim says the company deliberately avoided expanding outside New Jersey despite lower-cost options elsewhere, citing workforce availability as the deciding factor.

Industry analysts say the deal reinforces New Jersey's continued relevance as a pharmaceutical manufacturing hub even as some drugmakers have shifted research operations to other regions.