Roche breaks ground on US manufacturing facility

Roche's Genentech unit has started work on a $700 million manufacturing facility in North Carolina,  part of a promised $50 billion investment in the US.

The plant – its first on the East Coast of the US – is a 65,000 sq m unit located in Holly Springs that will be used to support the production of Roche's medicines for metabolic diseases, including candidates for obesity.

It is the second major investment to be announced in Holly Springs in the space of a few days, coming after Johnson & Johnson said it would spend $2 billion to build a 160,000-plus sq ft bulk drug substance facility at a site operated there by contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Fujifilm Biotechnologies.

Genentech's new facility will create more than 1,900 jobs during the construction phase, with around 400 workers employed at the plant when it is fully up and running in 2029. The company said it chose Holly Springs because it is a "growing hub for biopharmaceutical innovation" with access to a skilled workforce, and has strong academic centres and life sciences companies nearby.

Like many of its peers in the industry, Roche is developing various incretin therapies for diabetes and weight loss, currently led by long-acting injectable amylin analogue petrelintide and a pair of dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonists, all of which are in phase 2 clinical development.

It is also running mid-stage trials of anti-myostatin candidate emubrobart (GYM 329), an antibody designed to target skeletal muscles and increase their size and growth, counteracting the muscle-wasting effects of current obesity drug classes.

The Holly Springs facility will make use of modern biomanufacturing technologies, as well as advanced automation and digital capabilities, and is on a 400,000 sq m lot that Roche said will include space for future expansion, as well as build in resilience against potential supply disruptions.

"This $700 million project is an integral part of our broader $50 billion commitment to further expand our already significant presence in the US, building on our 120-year legacy of driving innovation and creating jobs across America," said Roche's chief executive, Thomas Schinecker.

Schinecker announced the five-year US investment push in April with a pledge to export more medicines from the US than it imports once it is completed. Other projects in the programme include a gene therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, a manufacturing unit for continuous glucose monitoring products, and an AI-powered R&D facility in Massachusetts.

A lengthening list of big pharma companies has pledged billions of dollars in new builds and upgrades to manufacturing and R&D facilities in the US in the coming years in response to pressure from President Donald Trump to onshore and reshore manufacturing and avoid tariffs on imported medicines.