Pharma giant AbbVie picks Durham for $1.4 billion investment with hundreds of jobs
An American pharmaceutical giant plans to create hundreds of jobs at a new manufacturing site in Durham.
On Wednesday, North Carolina awarded AbbVie a job development investment grant to open a Durham campus, where the company pledges to hire 734 workers and invest $1.4 billion by early next decade.
Spun off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013, AbbVie is currently among the world’s 40 most valuable companies by market capitalization, with approximately 55,000 global employees. Its product lineup includes Botox, Humira and its top-selling plaque psoriasis drug Skyrizi.
In Durham, the company intends to manufacture obesity, oncology and neuroscience treatments, said Mark Poole of the N.C. Commerce Department during an Economic Investment Committee meeting Wednesday.
The 734 promised positions would pay an average annual wage of $118,041, Poole said, and be created between 2028 and 2031. In a statement Wednesday, AbbVie said its campus will be 185 acres and near Research Triangle Park. No exact location has yet been made public.
Durham County’s private sector average yearly wage is $102,817, according to N.C. Department of Commerce data.
To attract AbbVie, North Carolina awarded the company an economic incentive grant worth up to $19.35 million over 12 years, if AbbVie achieves its hiring and spends at least $1.3 billion on the site (AbbVie has committed to spend $100 million beyond this figure.) The city and county of Durham combined to offer the company $24.8 million in potential local tax breaks.
AbbVie would add to robust NC drugmaking hub
AbbVie is headquartered in Illinois, and Poole said the company considered expanding in metro Chicago before choosing the Triangle. Employers are required to list additional site candidates in order to receive North Carolina’s main economic incentive.
This Durham project represents AbbVie’s first significant investment in North Carolina. In January, the company committed to spend $100 billion in the U.S. over the next decade as part of a deal AbbVie entered with the Trump administration to avoid tariffs.
The greater Triangle region is already home to several large drug manufacturers, with Amgen, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and the contract drug maker FujiFilm Biotechnologies all building new or expanded local campuses since 2020. With AbbVie’s arrival, North Carolina will have production sites from eight of the largest 10 pharmaceutical companies by revenue, according to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
“Our investment in North Carolina represents a significant milestone for AbbVie as our largest capital investment to date and an important expansion of our manufacturing footprint into a new region of the United States,” the company’s CEO Robert Michael was quoted as saying in a written statement Wednesday.
As part of its total incentive package, the state allocated around $3.3 million to train future AbbVie workers through the community college system and the N.C. Department of Commerce’s Workforce Solutions Division.
This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Pharma giant AbbVie picks Durham for $1.4 billion investment with hundreds of jobs."
