As the life sciences industry in Philadelphia continues to build momentum, stakeholders now have a single hub to come together and discuss sector challenges. The Keystone LifeSci Collaborative launched last week as the first regional sector partnership of its kind, according to Cait Garozzo, executive director of the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WPSI), the workforce development program chosen to lead the project.

“Our charge is to create a coordinated workforce system across Southeastern Pennsylvania,” Garozzo told Technical.ly. “That will help to support, expand and create more equity in the life sciences workforce development system.”

A handful of other organizations have been convening life sciences leaders, she acknowledged — including Life Sciences PA, the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia and the Wistar Institute — but most are now working with WPSI to make the collab a central place for questions or concerns from anyone in the ecosystem.

“We are centering industry so we can create collaborative, comprehensive, systems level responses to the issues that we’re hearing,” Garozzo said.

Life sciences company Integral Molecular is an industry partner involved in the collaborative. The company is specifically interested in advancing workforce development in the industry, cofounder and VP of Sales and Customer Relations Sharon Willis told Technical.ly.

“We need workers and we need to attract and train but we also need to maintain that workforce,” Willis said, “which means addressing other issues that come along with employment.”

The idea of bringing everyone together to identify top priorities and come up with solutions is exciting to Willis, as is the opportunity to share resources and ideas.

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