Dive Brief:
- AbbVie will invest $1.4 billion to build a large manufacturing campus in Durham, North Carolina, to support production of its immunology, neuroscience and oncology medicines.
- The drugmaker plans to hire 734 people at the 185-acre site over the next four years, including engineers, scientists, production workers and laboratory technicians, according to a news release. It also plans to implement artificial intelligence to support production.
- Construction of the facility will begin this year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2028, AbbVie said Wednesday. This is the company’s first major investment in North Carolina and its largest investment in a single location to date.
Dive Insight:
The AbbVie Durham campus, which will be located near Research Triangle Park, is part of the drugmaker’s broader $100 billion commitment to U.S. research and development, as well as manufacturing, over the next decade.
The first phase of construction will include small-volume parenteral drug manufacturing facilities, laboratories, a warehouse, administrative offices and employee wellness centers, according to a news release. SVPs are sterile, injectable pharmaceutical products such as vials, prefilled cartridges and prefilled syringes containing medicines for injections or infusions. They are typically less than 100 milliliters by volume.
Once construction is complete, AbbVie said the Durham campus will be its U.S. center of excellence for SVP manufacturing with the ability to deliver medicines to patients worldwide. AbbVie chose the site for its ability to support future expansion and its proximity to the area’s strong local workforce.
“By establishing this campus, we are strengthening our ability to support future medical breakthroughs while also creating new jobs and a long-term partnership with Durham and the State of North Carolina,” Robert Michael, AbbVie chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
The state recently approved a job development investment grant that would reimburse AbbVie up to $19.3 million for its project over 12 years. The payments will begin only after the state is able to measure and verify that AbbVie has met its incremental job creation and investment targets, according to the office of North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein.
As part of the grant agreement, the state said it will also move as much as $6.4 million into its industrial development fund utility account, which is designed to support infrastructure upgrades in rural areas to attract future businesses. AbbVie’s project is estimated to add $8 billion to the state’s economy.
AbbVie has pledged to invest more than $2.2 billion in U.S. manufacturing over the past year, creating jobs in North Carolina, Illinois, Arizona and Massachusetts. This adds to the growing number of drugmakers spending billions expanding their manufacturing and R&D in the United States to better reach domestic customers amid tariffs and geopolitical disruptions.
CSL Behring broke ground on a $1.5 billion immunoglobulin plant in Kankakee, Illinois, last month. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania secured more than $1 billion from Johnson & Johnson and $3.5 billion from Eli Lilly to build drugmaking facilities focused on cancer and weight-loss medications, respectively.
