Roche’s Genentech to build a $700M manufacturing facility in North Carolina

Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, announced it will spend more than $700 million on a new 700,000-square-foot drug manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina.

The plant, which will add more than 400 manufacturing jobs and more than 1,500 construction jobs, will support Roche and Genentech’s future portfolio of next-generation obesity medicines.

“This initial investment could expand in the future based on business needs and the U.S. policy environment,” Genentech said in its announcement noting that the Holly Springs site will be the company’s first East Coast manufacturing facility.

Currently, Roche and Genentech’s U.S. footprint includes 13 manufacturing and 15 R&D sites with 25,000 employees at 24 sites in eight states.

Last month, Roche announced plans to invest $50 billion in its pharmaceutical and diagnostics operations in the U.S. over the next five years. The funding will go toward several key projects, including a new gene therapy manufacturing site in Pennsylvania and a continuous glucose monitoring facility in Indiana.

Roche’s investment in U.S. operations follows similar announcements recently by other Big Pharma companies, including AbbVie, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Gilead Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Takeda.