Novartis has settled on North Carolina as the home for three of its newest manufacturing facilities, which will see the company create a “flagship manufacturing hub” in the US state.
Its new end-to-end site in Durham, which will comprise two facilities, will be dedicated to the manufacture of biologics and sterile packaging. Novartis will also build a facility in Morrisville to produce tablets and capsules, as well as packaging for such medications.
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Alongside its new builds across the state, the company will expand the capabilities of its existing manufacturing site in Durham, which will now be able to support the aseptic fill-finish process for biologics.
Novartis anticipates the sites to be completed in 2027-2028 and they will create 700 new jobs and more than 3,000 indirect jobs across the supply chain by the end of 2030.
Across the new and revamped facilities, the company plans to produce medicines from across its main therapeutic focus areas, including oncology, neuroscience and immunology, as well as metabolic, cardiovascular and renal diseases.
According to the Swiss pharma, these investments put the company on track to produce all of its advanced technologies on US soil, which include its cell and gene therapy (CGT), radioligand and xRNA therapy assets. Novartis added that a facility for the manufacture of xRNA will be announced in the “coming months”.
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By GlobalDataConstruction of the two new sites and the expansion of its existing Durham facility fall under Novartis’ strategy to bolster its US manufacturing capacity, which saw the company pledge $23bn over five years into the country back in April 2025.
Earlier this month, Novartis opened a radioligand therapy (RLT) manufacturing facility in Carlsbad, California, which is the company’s third site responsible for RLT production within the US. The pharma now plans to take this count to five with two new sites, which will be situated in Florida and Texas, respectively.
Big pharma’s onshoring movements
In recent months, big pharma companies from across the globe have pushed to enhance their presence in the US.
This follows US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose 100% tariffs on branded pharmaceutical imports unless companies are “breaking ground” on a manufacturing facility on US soil.
AstraZeneca is building an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production facility in Virginia, which will see the UK-Swedish pharma invest $4.5bn into the state. According to AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot, this facility marks the largest single investment in the company’s history.
Known as Merck in the US, MSD is also extending its footprint across Virginia, which will see the company invest $3bn into a small API and drug product manufacturing facility in the state. Similar to Novartis, the company is also expanding operations in North Carolina with a $1bn vaccine production site.
Eli Lilly may also have a penchant for Virginia, as the Indiana-based pharma is building a $5bn facility in the state, which will manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and drug products. The company is also building a $6.5bn production site for its yet-to-be-approved weight loss pill, orforglipron, in Texas.
Meanwhile, AbbVie has chosen Massachusetts as the home of its latest expansion project, announcing its plans to perform a $70m upgrade on its AbbVie Bioresearch Center (ABC) in October 2025. Moderna has taken a similar path, detailing plans to invest $140m into its US mRNA manufacturing operations in Norwood, Massachusetts on 19 November.
In conversation with Pharmaceutical Technology, four key opinion leaders (KOLs) flagged Massachusetts as a key US biotech hub while touting Virginia and North Carolina as emerging stars.
