Fujifilm updates hiring, construction progress at enormous Holly Springs site
Biotechnology in the North Carolina Triangle has seen recent setbacks — including layoffs and office closures — yet the company behind the area’s largest life science project says it’s right on schedule.
Within two years, Fujifilm Diosynth expects to begin producing medicines at a nearly 2 million-square-foot plant in Holly Springs. By the end of 2028, it has promised to create 725 jobs at the site 20 miles southwest of downtown Raleigh.
In an interview Tuesday, Fujifilm Diosynth CEO Lars Petersen said his firm has already hired around 190 full-time employees as it prepares to open the facility in 2025.
Fujifilm Diosynth is a division of Fujifilm, the Japanese parent company known historically for photography. In recent years, however, Fujifilm has shifted resources toward health care. As a contract drug manufacturer, Fujifilm Diosynth doesn’t invent drugs itself but produces at scale the medicines other pharmaceutical companies create.
“We can take care of the entire supply chain for the industry,” Petersen said.
On Tuesday, Fujifilm Diosynth publicized its first tenant at the Holly Springs plant, a Johnson & Johnson company called Janssen Supply Group.
The facility is projected to be the biggest cell culture contract manufacturing plant in North America. Petersen said the site will include at least eight bioreactors for manufacturing with the capacity to expand to 32.
“It’s the largest job we’ve ever done within the life sciences space,” said Bob Pragada, CEO of Jacobs, the Dallas-based firm managing the development’s engineering and construction.
Pragada said its only recently that pharmaceutical companies have begun to contract out their manufacturing needs to U.S. sites.
Despite Pfizer setbacks, Fujifilm is confident
In addition to creating 725 jobs, Fujifilm pledged in March 2021 to retain 664 existing positions in North Carolina and direct approximately $1.5 billion toward the site, a commitment the company says has grown to $2 billion. If it meets its hiring and investment goals, Fujifilm will benefit from state incentives worth almost $20 million over 12 years.
Wake County and Holly Springs added $92 million in incentives to the project, including land donation and a tax grant. N.C. Department of Commerce records show at least $21 million of these local funds has already been dispersed.
Fujifilm Diosynth has an existing facility in Morrisville, and last November, another subsidiary called Fujifilm Irvine Scientific announced plans to open a $188 million cell culture manufacturing plant in Research Triangle Park within three years.
Health care is expected to comprise half of Fujifilm’s overall business by 2030, Petersen said.
.jpg "IMG_3988 (1).jpg")
On Tuesday, Fujifilm Diosynth held an event to showcase its construction progress in Holly Springs. The celebration came a few weeks after Pfizer confirmed it planned to shutter two Triangle-area facilities as part of a companywide effort to reduce $3.5 billion in costs. Pfizer cited lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine as a cause for its cuts.
Fujifilm Diosynth has worked on COVID-19 vaccines, and continues to produce vaccines in general, but Petersen said none of the company’s existing or future Triangle-area facilities are expected to focus on vaccine production.
“(Holly Springs) is much more for oncology or for autoimmune disease drugs,” he said.
Petersen pointed out that while demand for vaccines depends “on pandemics going on,” the market for biologic medicines has grown more steadily.
This story was originally published November 8, 2023 at 7:30 AM with the headline "Fujifilm updates hiring, construction progress at enormous Holly Springs site."
