Biomanufacturing Brings Unique Challenges, Opportunities to the Palmetto State

South Carolina’s life sciences industry has taken flight in recent years, with more than 1,000 life sciences companies either headquartered or doing significant business in the Palmetto State.

These companies face unique challenges and opportunities in manufacturing their products and equipment. A panel discussion, “Biomanufacturing Titans Anchoring Growth, Keeping It Local,” at the SCbio Life + Science Conference, held Feb. 18, 2026, at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, explored this topic with several people who work in the industry.

GE Healthcare, based in Florence since 1970, manufactures MRI systems. The company has around 800 employees, said Scott Olsen, executive plant manager. The company operates a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and a 250,000-square-foot distribution center.

General Electric initially came to Florence to expand its mobile radio manufacturing arm. The city was chosen in part because of its proximity to interstates 20 and 95, which offered ease of transportation and distribution and to ports in Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, Olsen said.

Another factor in the initial choice of Florence was the workforce, and “we’ve been blessed with a great workforce over many years,” Olsen said.

Support from local government and economic development agencies was key as well, especially when GE decided to begin manufacturing MRI equipment “in a small corner of the radio plant” in 1983. That production expanded through the late 1980s, and eventually GE decided to add distribution to the mix, Olsen said.

The Ritedose Corporation, located in Columbia, manufactures respiratory and ophthalmic medications using its Blow-Fill-Seal technology. The company’s 500,000-square-foot facility can produce around 2.6 billion doses per year, said Jody Chastain, Ritedose president and CEO.

Ritedose has grown significantly in recent years, including the opening of a distribution center last year.

“Probably the largest strategic investment we’ve made – not the largest financially, but the largest in terms of strategy – is the procurement of an additional 105 acres that was beside our facility we just built, and moving the distribution facility there,” Chastain said. “That was really to showcase what we’re trying to do, not only today but what we’re going to be doing through 2035. … We’ve already started working on that, where we’ve actually built the facility there, and we’ve got an additional 85 acres to start building on next.”

Becton Dickinson (BD), a medical device manufacturer headquartered in New Jersey, has also seen its share of expansion since its manufacturing operation opened in Sumter in 1970. The company started out as a manufacturer of glass syringes in a 600,000-square-foot plant.

Fifty-six years later, it has evolved to “almost 1,000 employees working 24/7 producing a variety of medical devices, using different styles of manufacturing including best-in-class, most advanced technology,” said Anais Deidon, senior director, global order fulfillment at BD. “What truly helps us stay aligned in this mission is No. 1, the purpose of our mission. Our mission is to advance the world of health, and that creates across the network a global mindset that helps us stay aligned on why we are operating.”

It’s also about “strategy, in the sense that we’ve been in South Carolina for 55 years, and we’ve been very intentional about how we invest in the facilities and the technology that we bring. … Our Sumter site is proudly called the Center of Excellence for several technologies.”

There are challenges with both workforce and the supply chain, in part because of the specialized nature of the products that these companies produce.

“There are only six sites in the world that do what we do at (this) scale,” Olsen said. “So there aren’t people doing similar things. … Our strategy is to locally source, train internally, give them a pathway for growth, and then retain them.”

For example, GE Healthcare uses helium-vessel and helium-piping welding to make its products, and “the only thing that really comes close is welding in the nuclear industry, for the certifications that they have,” Olsen said.

So the company has partnered with local universities, including Francis Marion and Coker, as well as technical schools to work on training and recruitment.

For Ritedose, it’s important to be proactive, Chastain said. The company has created a program with Newberry College’s pharmaceutical program, in which Ritedose engineers serve as adjunct faculty members, and has a partnership with Benedict College focusing on international students, with the aim of creating Ritedose careers for those students.

On the supply chain side, companies work hard to connect with global and local suppliers. For GE Healthcare, it’s important to work with machine shops and contractors in the Pee Dee region, because “everybody’s aware that the global supply chain is a little more turbulent than it was,” Olsen said.

Ritedose also works with suppliers both here and abroad, Chastain said.

“I feel pretty good about our supply chain,” he said. “Not every component that we can get is here in the United States. We are relying on some global suppliers as well. But we’ve done a good job over the years of dual-sourcing.”

One of the biggest challenges that BD has faced recently was the 2024 bridge collapse in Maryland, Deidon said.

A container ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, killing six people and blocking most shipping through the port for nearly three months.

“We have lots of products that are flowing through Baltimore in and out,” Deidon said. “So coming in to supply and going out, distributing our products. That was a big challenge for us, and we managed in a couple of hours to build the right team, have the right decision framework, and take action so that the impact was seamless for us. So resilience is an art that we practice day in and day out.”