Alpharetta Biotech Executive Samuel Whitmore Leads Breakthrough Drug Manufacturing Deal

Samuel Whitmore, chief executive of Alpharetta-based contract drug manufacturer BioForge South, announced a landmark manufacturing agreement this week to produce a widely anticipated biologic therapy for a major pharmaceutical partner, a deal Whitmore says will roughly triple the company's production capacity over the next two years.

Whitmore founded BioForge South twelve years ago as a small-scale contract manufacturer serving early-stage biotech companies unable to build their own production facilities. The company has since grown into one of the largest independent biologics manufacturers in the state, benefiting from Georgia's growing bench of pharmaceutical manufacturing talent built up over the past two decades.

"Georgia has this enormous, somewhat invisible advantage — a workforce that has spent two decades learning how to manufacture complex biologics at scale," Whitmore said. "When a partner needs a manufacturing deal executed correctly on a tight timeline, that experience is worth more than a cheaper facility somewhere without it."

The new agreement will require BioForge South to add a second manufacturing suite at its Alpharetta campus, a $130 million expansion expected to create roughly 200 new manufacturing and quality control jobs. Whitmore says the company deliberately avoided expanding outside Georgia despite lower-cost options elsewhere, citing workforce availability as the deciding factor.

Industry analysts say the deal reinforces Georgia's continued relevance as a pharmaceutical manufacturing hub even as some drugmakers have shifted research operations to other regions.