Biotech Infrastructure Is Not Neutral

Editor’s Note

This essay grows out of a recent Brave Builders conversation with Jeremy Houser, co-founder of Houser Labs, who is building nonprofit biotech infrastructure in Fargo, North Dakota. Jeremy’s work challenges some of the most deeply held assumptions in biotech: where innovation is allowed to happen, who infrastructure is for, and what kinds of value the industry chooses to measure. His perspective became a catalyst for a broader question we don’t ask often enough:

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What if biotech infrastructure itself is one of the most powerful forces shaping the future of the field?

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We often talk about biotech as if innovation happens in a vacuum.

We celebrate breakthroughs, and funding rounds, and founders with bold visions. We track pipelines and platforms. We argue about regulation, and reimbursement, and risk. But beneath all of that is a quieter force shaping what gets built, who gets to build it, and where ambition is allowed to take root.

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That force is infrastructure.

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Labs. Manufacturing capacity. Testing facilities. Workforce pipelines. The cost of access to all of it. These systems are so foundational that they’re rarely questioned, and yet they silently determine which ideas survive long enough to matter. I find this immensely fascinating and a real opportunity in both storytelling and tangible impact.

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Infrastructure doesn’t just support innovation. It filters it.

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And it is anything but neutral.

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Infrastructure Is a Value System

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Every infrastructure system encodes a set of assumptions about what is worth doing.

High-cost, centralized biotech infrastructure favors scale, speed, and familiar paths to return. It rewards programs that can attract large pools of capital quickly and punishes work that requires patience, experimentation, or community-rooted growth. It conveniently “externalizes” these forces.

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Jeremy put this plainly in our conversation:

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“Nearly all the U.S. biotech infrastructure sits in ten cities, and doing research in these places can be inaccessibly expensive for startups. I want to create a future where innovators no longer face the choice between living in their home communities and pursuing their research aspirations.”

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That choice is rarely acknowledged, but it shapes the industry in profound ways. When access is expensive, participation narrows. When participation narrows, diversity of ideas contracts. When geography dictates legitimacy, entire communities are excluded before the science even begins.

We don’t often describe infrastructure in these terms, but we should. Because infrastructure doesn’t just enable innovation. It actively shapes it. I’m impressed by Jeremy’s relentless spirit, optimism, and long-term thinking about building in Fargo.

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The Concentration Problem

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Nearly all U.S. biotech infrastructure is clustered in a small number of cities. This concentration is often framed as efficiency. Sure. Talent attracts capital. Capital attracts companies. Density creates momentum. Boom! We have velocity.

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But density also creates fragility.

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When innovation is geographically constrained, costs escalate, competition for talent intensifies, and risk tolerance shrinks. Founders are quietly asked to optimize for proximity rather than purpose.

This is not a failure of individuals. It is a structural outcome.

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And over time, it determines which problems are considered worth solving.

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What the System Leaves Behind

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One of the clearest signals of misalignment in biotech today is not scientific failure. It is selective attention.

Over the next decade, more than one hundred biologics will lose patent exclusivity. Yet only a small fraction have biosimilars in development, and those tend to be the most profitable products.

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Jeremy named this gap directly:

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“The drugs with biosimilars in development happen to be the most profitable ones, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence. Our goal is to build a system that supports the other 90 percent.”

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Nice work, Jeremy! Diseases with smaller markets. Therapies with thinner margins. Vaccines for neglected populations. Rare conditions that require creativity more than scale. These are not sidelined because they lack importance. They are sidelined because the infrastructure surrounding biotech makes them difficult to pursue.

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The system doesn’t reject these ideas outright. It simply fails to support them.

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Biotech as Public Infrastructure

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There is another way to think about this.

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We already accept that certain systems are foundational to collective progress. Roads. Power grids. Water systems. These are treated as public infrastructure not because they lack economic value, but because their value is broadly distributed.

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Biotech infrastructure increasingly functions the same way.

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When lab access, manufacturing capacity, and testing capabilities are treated as shared resources rather than exclusive advantages, something shifts. Risk becomes more evenly distributed. Participation widens. Innovation becomes more pragmatic and less speculative.

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This does not require abandoning markets. It requires acknowledging that infrastructure choices are policy choices, whether we name them or not.

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Policy is not just about ‘intervening’. It is about shaping a different future: co-creating markets and value, not just ‘fixing’ markets or redistributing value. It’s about taking risks, not only ‘de-risking’. And it must not be about levelling the playing field but about tilting it towards the kind of economy we want.

Mariana Mazzucato
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy

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Place Still Matters

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Biotech is often portrayed as a placeless industry. Data flows freely. Collaboration spans continents. Science is global.

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But people are not.

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Scientists have families. Founders have roots. Communities shape identity, and resilience, and long-term commitment. Asking people to relocate in order to participate in innovation is a hidden cost we rarely account for.

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Jeremy’s belief in Fargo as a biotech hub is not naïve optimism. It’s a long-term systems bet. One that understands that trust, workforce development, and local pride compound slowly, but powerfully.

An ecosystem that grows with its community is harder to displace, harder to hollow out, and far more resilient over time. I truly admire the way Houser Labs is choosing to build.

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Resilience Over Velocity

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The most important biotech outcomes unfold over decades, not funding cycles.

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Infrastructure decisions compound slowly. They determine whether ecosystems can survive downturns, whether talent circulates locally, and whether innovation creates durable value rather than momentary excitement.

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An ecosystem built solely for velocity will struggle to endure. One built for resilience can support experimentation, failure, and long-term growth.

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This is not a call to slow down biotech.

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It is a call to design it more thoughtfully.

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What Brave Building Looks Like

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Brave builders question defaults.

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They ask why innovation must look the same everywhere. They design systems that prioritize participation over extraction. They build where the system says it will be harder, not because they are contrarian, but because they believe value is being left on the table.

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This kind of building rarely attracts immediate attention. It compounds quietly. And over time, it reshapes what is possible.

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Why This Matters Now

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Biotech is entering a period of transition. I became fascinated with the field last year, and the more I learn about what has led up to this point in the industry, the history building over many decades, the more I get excited about the opportunities in front of us.

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Patent cliffs, rising costs, workforce constraints, and public trust all point to a need for structural rethinking. The next decade will be shaped less by discovery alone and more by the systems that determine who gets to discover.

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Infrastructure is one of the most powerful levers we have.

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Ignoring it is no longer an option.

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Designing the Future We Want

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Infrastructure choices are moral choices, whether we acknowledge them or not.

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They decide whose ideas are funded, whose careers are viable, and which problems are considered worth solving. If we care about resilience, equity, and real-world impact in biotech, we have to start paying attention to the systems beneath the science.

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The future of biotech will not be defined only by what we invent.

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It will be defined by the story we choose to tell.

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It will be defined by how, where, and for whom we choose to build.