Camden and innovation are not always mentioned in the same breath, but New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy made the connection loud and clear in his fiscal year 2026 budget address on Tuesday.
Murphy’s quest to restore New Jersey’s innovative reputation as he enters his final year in elective office has Camden playing a pivotal role. The city is host to one of 10 strategic innovation centers, or SICs, planned throughout the state for emerging industries, including biotech and fintech, with funding help from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
The NJ Biomedical Strategic Innovation Center in Camden will break ground this summer to develop what the governor hopes will be groundbreaking research in the biomedical and health science fields.
“Now more than ever, we need to position New Jersey’s students, workers, and innovators to outcompete anyone on the planet,” Murphy said to a joint session of the state Legislature on Feb. 25. “And that is precisely why one of the hallmarks of my Administration has been restoring New Jersey’s reputation as a bedrock of revolutionary innovation.”
News of Camden landing one of the coveted SICs comes on the heels of another recent innovation announcement.
In December, Nokia Bell Labs unveiled plans to relocate its campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey, by 2028 to a new state-of-the-art research and development facility in the burgeoning innovation and technology hub in New Brunswick.
Last week, the NJEDA announced it was partnering with Nokia to create the NJ Nokia Innovation Center and New Jersey Bell Labs Venture Studio, another SIC. The NJEDA said the New Brunswick facility will focus on accelerating and commercializing intellectual property in communication, AI, cloud computing, and optical and wireless networks.
Murphy said during his budget address that the NJEDA secured $250 million in funding from partners in the private sector to launch the 10 strategic innovation centers.
Camden-based Coriell Institute for Medical Research—named after virologist Lewis L. Coriell, who helped develop the polio vaccine—announced on Monday that it, too, was moving into a soon-to-be-built building on what it hopes will eventually become a new science campus.
Coriell, the Camden Cancer Research Center, and the NJ Biomedical Strategic Innovation Center all hope to call the new campus home by late 2027, according to Coriell’s President and CEO, Dr.Jean-Pierre Issa.
Why Camden?
These days, the question is more `Why not Camden? said Issa.“Our founder loved Camden and spent his entire professional career in Camden and he believed in the region. We have been part of Camden’s `Golden Age,’ and we have seen some of the decline in Camden, and now we are part of Camden’s renaissance as a region.”
Issa said there was a ‘critical mass’ in Camden’s biomedical research and health sciences.
In late January, Cooper University Health Care broke ground on an unprecedented $3 billion expansion of its already sprawling campus in Camden, called “Project Imagine.”
Issa said the new Biomedical Strategic Innovation Center in Camden could give North and Central Jersey a run for their money in terms of bragging rights for the top biomedical research hub.
“You need the facility and you need the critical mass,” said Issa. “We want to transform Camden into a hotbed of biomedical research. We want to be recognized as an important part of the state. We no longer want to be the best-kept secret in Camden.”
Neither does Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which is helping to develop the innovation centers.
The NJEDA plans to invest $20 million to support the NJ Biomedical SIC in Camden, pending approval from its Board of Directors. The Coriell Institute will invest over $21 million to construct the innovation center, including state-of-the-art incubators and laboratory spaces for emerging biotech companies.
“Through the NJEDA’s Strategic Innovation Center initiative, Camden will serve as a pivotal hub for cutting edge biomedical research, advancing lifesaving technologies in cancer treatment, stem cell applications, epigenetics, and drug development,” Sullivan said in a statement on Feb. 24. “By partnering with leading corporations and academic institutions, the NJ Biomedical Strategic Innovation Center will leverage the state’s brightest minds to create companies of the future, generating high-quality jobs, and growing New Jersey’s economy.”
The NJ Biomedical SIC will take up approximately 45,000 square feet at the Lewis L. Coriell Medical Research Center, which is being built on a seven-acre plot near The Campbell’s Co. headquarters and Subaru of America.
The project is expected to create approximately 150 new permanent jobs, plus 100 construction jobs, according to the NJEDA.
“Coriell is thrilled to partner with Governor Murphy and the NJEDA to expand the life sciences ecosystem in southern New Jersey,” Issa said in the same Feb. 24 announcement.
Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, who represents Camden County, said the historic collaboration between the NJEDA and Camden represents an investment “in the future of this city as a powerhouse for biomedical discovery and economic growth.”
Equally important, Camden and the other innovation centers could play a key role in Gov. Murphy’s legacy—one he clearly hopes will include restoring innovation glory to the Garden State.
“Remember, all it takes is one Microsoft or one Apple to completely change the game for our state’s economy,” Murphy said in his seventh and final budget speech.
