MANCHESTER, N.H. —

Artificial intelligence and extended reality are in the spotlight in Manchester this week as part of an event focused on cybersecurity.

For the past seven years, the cybersecurity program at 91���� has been holding an annual symposium.

This year, the event focused on how AI and XR technology can be used in the workplace.

This event��lasts several days, gathering cybersecurity experts from several places.

Among the speakers are some students who have taken what they’ve learned in the classroom and figured out ways to apply it to the real world, including by helping law enforcement use cellphone towers and data to track down suspects.

The program’s director said he hopes guests will walk away with cybersecurity safety tips, as well as a better understanding of the role AI and XR have in the workplace.

“We understood that really extended reality is about business. It’s about how you use extended reality for meetings, how do you show someone how something … you got to take something apart when you’re thousands of miles away? So, that’s the kinds of things we’re doing in our extended reality program. So, we’re always looking ahead,” said Peter Lamonica, department chair for computer science at 91����.

Lamonica said the 91���� computer science program takes a future-first approach, meaning it strives to teach students where technology will be in two years, rather than where it is right now.

Moving a scientific discovery from the lab to the factory floor can take decades, especially in the medical field where scaling also requires clinical trials, FDA approvals and billing codes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The biotech sector in the Granite State took some big steps toward that transition in 2025, as companies that spent years developing concepts and proving them in the lab began to scale for mass production, bringing those technologies out of the lab and onto the manufacturing floor.

One of them was the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), founded in 2016 by Dean Kamen and headquartered in the Manchester Millyard. ARMI will celebrate its first decade in operation in 2027 after some significant milestones in 2025, including the groundbreaking on Dec. 15 for a biomanufacturing facility and workforce training center at 150 Dow St. in the Millyard, slated for completion in 2027. ARMI’s future manufacturing line joins several successful life sciences businesses already in production phases.��

Andrea Hechavarria, president and CEO of NH Life Sciences (NHLS), points to several members of the statewide trade organization that have products commercially available, including Novo Nordisk in Lebanon, Millipore Sigma in Jaffrey, N.H., and Foxx Life Sciences in Londonderry, N.H., along with Novocure, Ovik Health, and Tenovi, all in Portsmouth, N.H.

Other members are partnering with pharma, biotech, or med-tech firms to bring their products to market through drug development, device design, engineering, commercial manufacturing and packaging. These include Lonza in Portsmouth, Resonetics in Nashua and HiArc in Merrimack, N.H.

This growth is reflected in the NHLS membership data. “This has been an extraordinary year for NHLS,” says Hechavarria, “We started our organization with two members in 2023, and now we are more than 50. We’re rolling out new programming, engaging in more events and unifying our membership across the state.”��

There are also “early stage” companies like Pirouette Pharma in Portsmouth, which develops OnePush, a disc shaped, push button auto injector with a fully automatic, hidden needle, and 3X Genetics in Manchester, which produces test kits that accelerate the diagnosis of red blood cell related diseases, such as Myotonic Dystrophy, Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD), and Huntington’s Disease.

Year of extraordinary growth

The growth in NHLS membership is a good indicator of the vitality of the expanding biotech sector in New Hampshire.��

NHLS is a state affiliate of the national trade group BIO (Biotechnology Innovation Organization), whose most recent “Techonomy” report pegged employment growth in the biotech workforce in NH at about 7% a year since 2019, with more than 11,000 workers now employed in the field.

That growth rate is expected to accelerate in the years ahead as more companies like Advanced Solutions Life Sciences gear up production in the Manchester Millyard.

“We were the first moon to get pulled into the ARMI orbit, which has been great because we’ve been able to participate in the building and stand-up effort,” says James Hoying, partner and chief scientist at��Advanced Solutions, which won the 2025 Product of the Year award from the NH Tech Alliance in November 2025.

The judges were impressed with the company’s BioAssemblyBot, a multi-axis robotic platform that automates various tasks in 3D bioprinting, tissue engineering, and biomanufacturing.

“It’s what we call point-of-care manufacturing,” says Hoying. “We have our bio assembly platform at two different VA hospitals. One is the Puget Sound, the other one is in Charleston, South Carolina, with the idea that they can manufacture tissues, therapeutic tissues, to scale, at the point of care. In other words, they’re in the hospital when needed, where the patients are.”

Market potential

Another company on the verge of a big breakout is��BioAI, headquartered on Elm Street in Manchester. Founded in 2020, it uses artificial intelligence to identify molecular signatures in a tumor to identify effective therapies.��

“With that AI we can guide patients to the right therapy,” says BioAI CEO and President Thomas Colarusso. “We are close to having a product that can be deployed to labs across the United States and a number are ready to deploy for��clinical trials.”

Colarusso says it’s not hard to imagine the number of jobs and the economic opportunity that could be created if one day Advanced Solutions bio assembly machines and BioAI technology are deployed in most major hospitals in the U.S. and beyond.��

“The goal for 2026 is to have our first lab deployment,” says Colarusso. “Last year, there were 19 million newly diagnosed cancer patients around the world. So, imagine having a test that could be used as a screen for every one of those patients at a few hundred dollars per patient sample screened. Using AI to screen patient samples for Cancer biomarkers is a multi-billion-dollar global market opportunity.”

Favorable regulatory changes

Another major development for NH’s biotech sector was the passage of “Right to Try” legislation in Concord, signed into law by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in August 2025 to grant patients access to investigational individualized treatments. It is the 16th state to adopt such legislation, according to the Goldwater Institute.

“In 2025 New Hampshire opened up its laws to say basically that early-stage drugs can be utilized by patients who are terminally ill,” says Mark Laliberte, business development manager for the��NH Department of Business and Economic Affairs��(BEA).��

The change is designed to give certain patients who waive their right to sue more options while making NH more attractive to biomedical researchers.

“My expectation is we should be seeing more growth in 2026,” says Laliberte. “Some of that will come from Massachusetts companies looking for more space and a more hospitable regulatory environment.”

There has been some notable recent migration of biotech companies from Massachusetts to the Granite State, including Analogic Corp., a major health care technology company, which moved its headquarters from Peabody, Mass., to Salem, N.H., in early 2025. SynQor Inc., which produces power converters for the medical industry, will be moving from Boxborough, Mass., to the same Salem location in the mixed-use Tuscan Village in the spring of 2026.

Expanding the workforce

Continuing to attract new companies and supporting the growth of those already here requires expanding the workforce, which will be a big focus in 2026 for NH-LIFT (Long-Term Investment to Fuel Transformative Research). The new project, funded by the National Science Foundation and launched in 2024, brings universities, industry and government together for workforce development that will meet the needs of this burgeoning industry.

“If you have a skilled workforce, you can start to siphon off some of the biotech companies that are currently located in other areas nearby to help them co-locate within New Hampshire,” says Marian McCord, senior vice provost for research, economic engagement, and outreach at the University of NH and the lead for NH-LIFT. “If you create a skilled workforce, you have more success in drawing industry here; that’s a lot of what we’re trying to do.”

That growing workforce is not limited to bioengineers with advanced degrees, according to Mark Milutinovich, executive director of research strategy and development at UNH, who works closely with McCord.

“The needs are going to be across a pretty wide continuum of skills,” he says. “There’s a need for entry-level technician jobs, in addition to those that require a little bit more advanced training.”

Milutinovich cited closer relationships among the colleges and universities in and around Manchester that are working toward the same goals.

“How do we develop training opportunities so that there’s more shared buy-in and understanding of what those programs need to be to get to the workforce we will eventually need as this industry takes off,” he says.

91���� Part of ReGen Valley Common Campus Workforce Initiative

A prominent example of cooperation in workforce development for biotech is the ReGen Valley Common Campus, an initiative among nine New England colleges, universities, and industry partners that just completed its first full year of operation and is looking forward to big things in 2026 at the Common Campus Biotechnology Innovation Center, or BIC as it’s known.

“We’ve effectively opened up the BIC to all the academic institutions that are a part of the common campus,” says Milutinovich at UNH. “This spring, 91���� and Nashua Community College will be bringing students here to do labs at the BIC to broaden their experience and to show them they might have a place in this industry.”

NH Life Sciences celebrated the end of a successful year in 2025 with its second annual Live Free Life Sciences Event in November at the Tuscan Village in Salem, featuring Anna Puglisi, former director for technology and national security at the White House.��

“Here in New Hampshire, you are proving that leadership and life sciences don’t depend on being in Silicon Valley or Cambridge,” Puglisi told the gathering of 230 industry representatives. “It depends on vision and the ability to connect universities, startups, investors and policy networks into a resilient innovation community.”��

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