FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies Announces First Tenant at Holly Springs Site

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies has the first tenant for its huge $2 billion contract biomanufacturing site under construction in Holly Springs, 20 miles southwest of Raleigh.

The company said Janssen Supply Group, LLC, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, has committed to a large-scale manufacturing suite at the new plant, which should be fully operational in 2025. FUJIFILM Diosynth, a division of FUJIFILM, said the commitment is an extension of an existing relationship and will support the manufacture of Janssen’s clinical and commercial pipeline.

“We are pleased to be able to expand this collaboration into our new state-of-the-art facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina,” said FUJIFILM Diosynth President and CEO Lars Petersen. “This underscores our unwavering commitment to be a long-term Partner Development and Manufacturing Organization (PDMO) in the advancement of patients around the world.”

Once it’s up and running, the nearly two million-square-foot Holly Springs site is expected to be the largest end-to-end cell culture production facility in North America. It’s also North Carolina’s largest single life sciences investment over the past four decades.

The Holly Springs investment is part of an effort to increase FUJIFILM Diosynth’s manufacturing capacity by more than five times through a combined commitment of up to $7 billion in Europe and the U.S., according to the company.

The Holly Springs plant will employ more than 725 people when fully operational, at an average salary of just under $100,000 annually. It will conduct large-scale cell culture manufacturing of bulk drug substance for other pharmaceutical companies; offer commercial-scale, fully automated fill-finish and assembly of a variety of syringes; and provide equipment for automatic packaging and labeling.

In addition to the jobs created in Holly Springs, FUJIFILM – which also has a FUJIFILM Diosynth facility in Morrisville – has pledged to retain 664 existing positions in North Carolina. Another subsidiary, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, has announced plans to open a $188 million cell culture manufacturing plant in Research Triangle Park within three years.