Editor’s (re)View: North Carolina’s biomanufacturing building boom is also a challenge

Last night, President Trump posted on Truth Social that starting Oct. 1 his administration will impose a 100% tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product, unless the company “is building” their manufacturing plant in the U.S. Trump said “IS BUILDING” is defined as “breaking ground” and/or “under construction” with “no tariff on these pharmaceutical products if construction has started.”

Lars Petersen, CEO of contract development and manufacturing organization Fujifilm Biotechnologies, told Pharma Manufacturing at Wednesday’s grand opening of its $3.2 billion biomanufacturing site in Holly Springs, North Carolina, that the state’s building boom preceded the potential threat of U.S. tariffs. “The market is very hot, and it’s gotten even hotter because of the tariff discussion,” Petersen said.   

North Carolina has seen more than $13.5 billion worth of announced life sciences investments in 2024 and 2025.  So far, 2024’s $10.8 billion in public announcements was the biggest year of capital expenditure in the history of the Tar Heel State, driven predominantly by manufacturing, according to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech).

Yet, that level of success has also brought challenges. Contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) who spoke last week with analysts at Leerink Partners, noted two areas of the U.S. with biomanufacturing building booms — North Carolina and Indianapolis — which were cited repeatedly as “saturated” with construction.

The CDMOs warned the analysts that this is “driving talent scarcity in those clusters and longer lead times for commissioning because everyone is hiring at once.”   

Jacobs, a technical professional services firm based in Dallas, Texas, provided engineering procurement construction management services for Fujifilm’s Holly Springs campus. At Wednesday’s grand opening, Jacobs CEO Bob Pragada said that it “took a village” to build the Holly Springs site. At the same time, he acknowledged there were “plenty” of challenges — “sometimes in waves” — but without elaborating on them.

However, Petersen told Pharma Manufacturing that in North Carolina there’s a shortage of about 10,000 electricians “so there’s a lot of fight” for that limited resource for companies building in the state. “There’s some trades that are very difficult and we need to work hard [to fill them],” he said.

Electrician shortage

Lindsay Gerding, vice president and general manager of life sciences North America at Jacobs, told Pharma Manufacturing that with a building boom also occurring in semiconductors and data centers, electricians have been “exceptionally challenging” to find in North Carolina.

“We’re trying to be innovative with how we design things so we can do as much off-site with fabrication in regions where the workforce isn’t as stretched, and do what we have to do here locally,” Gerding said. “We do have to come up with some creative strategies when it comes to workforce, particularly in construction.”   

Fujifilm’s Holly Springs site is not Jacobs’ only ongoing life sciences construction project in the state, which Gerding called the hottest market in the U.S. In March, Johnson & Johnson broke ground on a new $2 billion biologics facility in Wilson, North Carolina, projected to add more than 5,000 manufacturing and construction jobs.  

“We do have a lot of projects in North Carolina,” Gerding said. “We see investments particularly in biomanufacturing, cell and gene therapy, and various technologies. We support many clients on site selections. We’ve been in various states with clients when they look, and North Carolina still seems to top the list of places to build.”

Bill Bullock, senior vice president for economic and statewide development at NCBiotech, points out that some of these biomanufacturing construction sites employ thousands of people and technical talent is getting more difficult to find. 

“The construction stuff’s real and we need to stay on top of that,” Bullock said. “It’s the champagne problem in a sense, but it’s real.”