Editor’s (re)View: North Carolina’s booming biotech industry is a model for other states
If you haven’t been to North Carolina recently, you’re missing out on seeing one of the nation’s biggest biotechnology success stories. In the U.S., the two largest life sciences clusters — Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area — often get much of the attention. However, the Tar Heel State has created a biotech hub that rivals those juggernauts.
For decades, North Carolina has been focused on economic development in the life sciences and pharmaceutical manufacturing, an investment of time, resources, partnerships, and political will that is bearing fruit. The state is now home to 840 life sciences companies that employ 75,000 people in a business-friendly environment, according to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech).
North Carolina “pretty much placed a bet 20-plus years ago on biomanufacturing,” said Bill Bullock, senior vice president for economic and statewide development at NCBiotech. “A lot of conversation is going on right now around tariffs, tax policy, and onshoring. We’ve kind of been doing that for a while.”
In the past 18 months alone, North Carolina has seen $11 billion worth of announced investments — including the creation of more than 5,000 new jobs — with 93% of this capital expenditure in life sciences manufacturing sites, according to NCBiotech.
Last month, Roche’s Genentech announced plans to build a $700 million, 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, which will create more than 400 jobs and support Roche and Genentech’s future portfolio of obesity medicines.
Fujifilm, Lilly, and Thermo
On a press trip last week, organized by the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, I had the opportunity to see firsthand the thriving life sciences sector in the state, including manufacturing facilities at Eli Lilly, Fujifilm Biotechnologies, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Fujifilm Biotechnologies is investing $3.2 billion to build a large-scale production facility in Holly Springs, a booming bedroom community about 20 miles from Raleigh. At the center of North Carolina’s innovative life sciences community is Raleigh-Durham’s Research Triangle Park (RTP), the largest research park in the U.S., whose 7,000 acres are home to more than 375 companies, as well as startups, nonprofits, and academic institutions. However, the biotech boom in the state goes well beyond just RTP.
In Greenville, approximately 85 miles east of Raleigh, Thermo Fisher is expanding its sterile fill-finish capabilities and adopting continuous manufacturing, a fully integrated process that runs uninterrupted from beginning to end providing an alternative to traditional batch manufacturing in which drug production is segmented into a series of slow-moving steps. While Thermo Fisher has been using continuous manufacturing at its Greenville site on the clinical side, the first commercial product is slated for later this year.
In Concord, Eli Lilly has built one of its most advanced, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Equipped with high-speed lines, robotics, and automated systems, the Lilly site started commercial production at the end of 2024 after completing construction in only two years — more than twice as fast as the industry average of five years.
The site was selected by Lilly to leverage North Carolina’s “reliable manufacturing workforce and partner with top-tier research and medical institutions as well as community colleges with strong programs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM),” according to the company.
Workforce is key
Securing top talent in R&D and manufacturing remains a challenge for life sciences companies. A 2022 report found that the U.S. faces a shortage of workers with the specialized knowledge for pharmaceutical manufacturing, with 60% of those jobs going unfilled. However, North Carolina has made a decades-long investment in workforce development and infrastructure.
“We have spent 20-plus years building a labor pool and a network of training facilities,” according to Bullock, who noted that North Carolina’s community colleges are providing industry-specific workforce training to help drive growth in the state’s talent supply. “It’s a great way to connect the community colleges straight on into the needs of the companies.”
The North Carolina Life Sciences Organization’s Biotech Manufacturers Forum meets regularly, bringing together companies, educational institutions, and government agencies to discuss industry-specific issues such as quality, regulatory, infrastructure, safety, and workforce training.
“That’s a group that includes all of these companies that are in manufacturing,” said Laura Gunter, president of the North Carolina Life Sciences Organization. “We meet quarterly with them and include these partners to talk about sustainability, workforce programs, and new things that are coming online.”
Bullock added: “Everything here is about partnership.”
