Insulin Maker Will Invest $22 Million as BioPharma Crescent Draws Attention
Novo Nordisk, which employs almost 1,200 manufacturing workers in Johnston County, will invest $22 million at its Clayton facility, creating 22 full-time jobs. The move comes just ten months after the world’s leading diabetes care company unveiled plans for a $65 million expansion there. Johnston County’s Board of Commissioners voted Monday to approve a seven-year package of financial incentives for Novo Nordisk’s latest investment, the company’s fourth in Johnston County since 2010.
“Johnston County leaders are proud to reiterate our support for Novo Nordisk and celebrate the mutually-beneficial partnership we have with this growing corporate resident,” said Ted Godwin, chairman of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners. “This global biopharma company has made our county a visible part of its production strategy, and I think that says all the right things about our business climate.”
Novo Nordisk’s Diabetes Finished Products (DFP) manufacturing facility in Clayton is responsible for the formulation, filling, inspection, assembly and packaging of diabetes and obesity medicines. The site opened in 1993. In August 2015, the company announced a $2 billion facility nearby that will produce Diabetes Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (DAPI) for a range of current and future diabetes and obesity medications. Once complete, that plant will employ 700 bio-manufacturing workers. Denmark-based Novo Nordisk has also been closely involved in the Johnston County Workforce Development Center, which underwent a $1.3 million remodeling earlier this year.
“We greatly appreciate the support of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners and the community at large for the quarter century we’ve called Clayton home,” said Chad Henry, corporate vice president and general manager of Novo Nordisk’s Diabetes Finished Products manufacturing site.
Novo Nordisk is one of a number of marquee life science names with growing operations in eastern North Carolina. Pfizer, Merck, Grifols, Purdue and Thermo-Fisher Scientific are among the other pharmaceutical companies with facilities across a five-county region known as the BioPharma Crescent. “Just as seriously as we take the vital role we play in producing innovative medicines for people with diabetes and obesity, we take great pride in creating jobs and supporting economic growth in Johnston and neighboring counties in the Biopharma Crescent region,” Henry said.
Along with Johnston County, the Crescent includes Edgecombe, Nash, Pitt and Wilson counties.
“There are an estimated 10,000 biopharma workers across the Crescent, and those numbers are growing,” says Chris Johnson, director of the Johnston County Economic Development Office. Johnson’s collaboration with counterparts in neighboring counties, as well as the Greenville office of the NC Biotechnology Center, has resulted in cooperative branding and marketing efforts designed to bring additional attention to the Crescent’s life sciences assets. “Proximity to research assets in the Triangle and in Greenville, as well as a proven talent pipeline starting in the middle-school years, are a powerful draw to forward-looking life sciences companies. Combine that with abundant infrastructure and land, and you have the makings of biotech region with a compelling value proposition and a global story to tell.”
