Biogen adding $2 billion to its RTP manufacturing campus
One of North Carolina’s largest life sciences companies, Biogen Inc. (Nasdaq BIIB), is celebrating its 30th anniversary in the state by announcing that it intends to invest an additional $2 billion at its two existing Research Triangle Park (RTP) campuses.
The Cambridge, Mass., biotech giant said the planned investment comes on the heels of some $10 billion already invested in manufacturing facilities in the state – the company’s largest factory footprint anywhere.
In a news release announcing the investment, the company said, “In the next few years, Biogen plans to continue investing in multiple modalities and factories across the company’s two campuses in RTP. 
“These investments will include further expansion of the antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) capabilities and infrastructure, establishing clinical and commercial multi-platform fill finish capabilities, and continuing to modernize manufacturing technologies and controls through further advanced automation and artificial intelligence.”
Laura Rowley, Ph.D., vice president of life sciences economic development at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, said the announcement from this biotechnology leader reaffirms North Carolina’s life sciences manufacturing prominence.
“Biogen broke ground for the first time in RTP in 1995, initially for a factory to produce treatments for multiple sclerosis,” Rowley said. “Its continued investments and partnership have made it a pivotal company for our statewide economy.”
Biogen is a founding member of the NC Life Sciences Apprenticeship Consortium and a partner in NCBiotech’s MOVE (Military Outreach and Veterans Engagement) program, which helps transitioning service members, their spouses, and veterans find new careers in the life sciences.
“We are proud of our longstanding commitment to manufacturing innovation, investment, and collaboration with the Research Triangle Park community," said Nicole Murphy, Biogen’s head of Pharmaceutical Operations and Technology. "Our manufacturing footprint in the United States has played a critical role in Biogen’s history and success, and in advancing the treatments that are making an impact for patients, families, and communities in the U.S. and around the world.
"With this investment, we will modernize and expand our manufacturing capability to enable our pipeline and provide resilient patient supply, while continuing to support the skilled and dedicated community of life sciences talent in North Carolina.”
Biogen, founded in 1978, is North Carolina’s largest biotechnology employer and one of the top five biopharmaceutical employers. It employs over 1,500 manufacturing and technical employees and more than 400 skilled contractors at seven factories across its Wake County and Durham County campuses. An eighth state-of-the-art factory, still under construction, will be operational later this year.
Outside the United States, the company says it has a smaller manufacturing footprint, which supplies certain international markets. In Europe, it operates one biologics factory in Switzerland and is consolidating certain ex-U.S. fill finish capabilities in Europe into one site in Ireland.