Genentech more than doubles initial Holly Springs investment to $2B

Genentech, considered one of the biotech industry’s founding companies, announced in May 2025 that it planned to build a $700 million, 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Holly Springs and employ 420 people at the new high-volume fill-finish site.

Today, the company announced it was more than doubling that investment to $2 billion, increasing production volume and scale at the facility, which broke ground in August 2025, and adding 100 new jobs, bringing the total to more than 500. 

The expanded investment will allow the South San Francisco-based company, a member of the Roche Group, to significantly increase the facility’s output, according to company officials at an announcement event Tuesday morning at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

“We are excited to further expand our investment in our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina,” said Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, in a press release. “This expansion reflects our long-term commitment to the United States and communities like Holly Springs that offer the kind of world-class biotech talent, top research institutions, and strong infrastructure that make innovation possible. 

“This additional investment will create more high-quality jobs, strengthen local partnerships, and ensure a resilient supply of medicines for years to come, allowing us to bring life-changing medicines to patients faster and more reliably.”

The expansion, even before the company pours the foundation from its initial announcement last May, supports Roche’s and Genentech’s broader $50 billion commitment to U.S. manufacturing, reflecting the company’s goal to strengthen domestic production and innovation. 

“It’s clear to us why Holly Springs stood out from the start. This community’s quality of life, proximity to world-class universities, an incredibly talented and innovative workforce, and growing infrastructure make it a perfect place to call home,” said Paul Bezy, global high volume portfolio leader, Roche. “That is why, as we build this facility, we are building for the long term—for the next 50 years of innovation, progress, and partnership.”  

Roche’s and Genentech’s current U.S. footprint includes 13 manufacturing and 15 R&D sites across the company’s Pharmaceutical and Diagnostics divisions and 25,000 employees at 24 sites across eight U.S. states. 

“Genentech’s increased investment in Holly Springs creates durable jobs and strengthens our life sciences sector,” said N.C. Gov. Josh Stein. “This expansion reinforces North Carolina’s role in supporting innovation, workforce development, and long-term economic opportunity.” 

The company said that it decided to increase its investment in Holly Springs, a growing hub for biopharmaceutical innovation, because of its highly skilled local workforce, strong academic institutions, and proximity to other leading life science companies in the Research Triangle region.

“North Carolina is the best state for business and a global life sciences trailblazer,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley. “Genentech’s expansion underscores the strength of the partnerships, both statewide and locally, and our nationally recognized workforce and research institutions that propel our thriving biotechnology hub forward.”

NCBiotech supported Wake County Economic Development, the Town of Holly Springs, Wake Tech Community College, North Carolina State University, Duke Energy, and Enbridge Gas North Carolina, and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC), along with other state and local partners to support the original project with site selection and connectivity to the life sciences industry and workforce development resources in the state.

“Genentech has fully embraced the collaborative spirit of the North Carolina life sciences community“ said Laura Rowley, PhD, vice president, life sciences economic development. “The state’s biomanufacturing training partners are at the ready to support today’s expansion.”

Although wages will vary depending on the position, the average salary for the new positions at the Genentech facility will be $119,833, compared with an average wage in Wake County of $76,643. The new positions will bring an annual payroll impact to the community of more than $50 million per year.

A biotech pioneer

Genentech was founded in 1976 by the late venture capitalist Robert A. Swanson and Herbert W. Boyer, Ph.D., a biochemist who first demonstrated the usefulness of recombinant DNA technology to produce commercial medicines, which laid the groundwork for Genentech’s development. Swanson, who died in 1999, was a partner with Kleiner & Perkins before forming Genentech with Boyer. 

One of Genentech’s early successes was the development of a synthetic insulin, as well as the first targeted antibody for cancer. Biologic therapeutics now make up a rapidly growing share of the pharmaceutical market and continue to offer new hope for difficult-to-treat diseases. 

Genentech has more than 13,500 employees worldwide and 785,000 square feet of space devoted to research. The company holds more than 20,000 patents, 40+ medicines on the market and 39 FDA Breakthrough Therapy designations.

The company has three major areas of focus: oncology, neuroscience and ophthalmology. Its list of approved drugs is long, including well-known names Avastin, Herceptin, Rituxan and Tamiflu.

In January 2025, Glassdoor named Genentech one of the “Best Places to Work” for the ninth time. A month later, Forbes named Genentech one of “America’s Best Large Employers” for the 10th consecutive year.

Another win for Holly Springs

The Genentech announcement of expanding its original investment marks another in a string of high-profile wins for Holly Springs. The fast-growing town in Wake County has seen biotech giants FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, CSL Seqirus and Amgen establish and expand large manufacturing sites there over the past few years.

A member of the Roche Group since 2009, San Francisco-based Genentech’s planned facility is near Amgen’s multi-product drug substance site. Founded in 1980, Amgen’s FleXbatch facility in Holly Springs is a more than $1.5 billion investment expected to employ 700 people once fully operational in 2032; it represents another California-based biotech pioneer leveraging North Carolina’s biomanufacturing prowess.

Genentech’s Holly Springs facility will be within a few miles of FUJIFILM Biotechnologies’ end-to-end cell culture biopharmaceutical CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) facility, the largest of its type in the U.S., once complete. FUJIFILM Biotechnologies has announced two major tenants: Janssen Supply Group, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, was announced in 2023, and Regeneron was announced in 2025. 

CSL Seqirus began its history in Holly Springs more than a decade ago. Novartis built a $1 billion plant there and began production in 2014. NCBiotech and numerous public and private partners collaborated for several years to recruit the facility to North Carolina. Novartis sold the plant and its vaccines business in 2015 to the vaccines division of CSL Ltd., an Australian biopharmaceutical company, for $275 million. CSL renamed the vaccines business Seqirus.

CSL Seqirus produces vaccines through a novel cell culture process instead of the traditional method of using poultry eggs. The company grows, or cultures, inactivated viruses that protect against flu infection in mammalian cells inside sterile, stainless-steel bioreactors.