Japanese medical equipment company to invest $398M, create 232 jobs in Greenville
Nipro Medical Corp., a medical equipment company based in Osaka, Japan, plans to invest $397.8 million to develop a new manufacturing facility and create more than 232 jobs in Greenville, N.C., one of Pitt County’s growing cities.
The state and the company announced the news at an event in Greenville on Wednesday, after the N.C. Department of Commerce's Economic Investment Committee (EIC) approved incentives for the project. Pitt County officials passed incentives last month.
“I’m excited to welcome another advanced manufacturing company to eastern North Carolina,” said Gov. Roy Cooper. "Not only will Nipro join a Greenville community of health care leaders, it will grow eastern North Carolina’s life sciences prowess with the help of the skilled, dedicated and diverse workforce they need to succeed."
The Greenville facility will be Nipro’s first manufacturing site in North Carolina and fifth in the United States. Nipro, with more than 38,000 employees globally, was founded in 1954 and serves the medical device, pharmaceutical and pharma packaging industries. The company has two facilities in New Jersey, one in Virginia and one in Indiana.
The new facility is set to produce state-of-the-art medical devices that support patients with diabetes, chronic kidney disease and other renal health issues. Nipro’s products are key to the supply chain of other life sciences companies that produce injectable products, such as those manufactured by Novo Nordisk, Lilly, and others in N.C. and beyond.
The Nipro campus will host a medical training center for healthcare providers, customer service center, and increase the company’s global capacity to continue expanding its footprint and offering high-end medical devices in a 550,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility for the North American market, state officials said.
“We are thrilled to start manufacturing our cutting-edge medical devices in the U.S., which will support local healthcare professionals and patients with a stable supply chain and reduced transportation costs," said Tsuyoshi Yamazaki, senior managing director of Global Business at Nipro. “Our close proximity to customers will allow us to better respond to their needs and provide them with timely and effective solutions. Our new facility in Greenville is a major milestone in our sustainability journey, reflecting our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint.”
Akira Shimizu, CEO of Nipro, said the new facility “marks a major milestone in Nipro's commitment to the U.S. market, allowing us to deliver high-quality medical devices that enhance patient outcomes and quality of life across the country.”
Laura Rowley, Ph.D., vice president of life sciences economic development for NCBiotech, praised Nipro’s decision to locate its newest facility in Greenville.
“Nipro is a welcome addition to North Carolina’s life sciences community,” Rowley said. “Nipro’s products are an essential part of the pharmaceutical supply chain and will be a great complement to the existing life sciences manufacturing operations across and beyond the state.”
Another Pitt County win
The EIC said that the project would expand the state’s gross domestic product by $798 million and net state revenue by about $20 million. Nipro had considered seven states for this investment, including Chesterfield County, Va. The company picked Greenville because of its proximity to other life sciences companies and the region’s infrastructure, labor market, real estate and utility costs, according to state officials.
Greenville is within the BioPharma Crescent in eastern North Carolina, which includes Edgecombe, Johnston, Nash, Pitt, and Wilson counties. Within those counties are thriving biomanufacturing and pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Merck, Grifols, Fresenius Kabi, and Thermo-Fisher Scientific are some of the major pharmaceutical manufacturing companies with facilities in that area.
“Japan is the largest foreign investor in our state and announcements like this only strengthen our partnership,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. “With the largest manufacturing workforce in the southeastern United States and a strategic plan that focuses on talent, we are committed to supporting the training and development systems needed to ensure we have the skilled workforce that global innovators like Nipro depend on.”
“We are so fortunate to have Nipro, a world-class organization, select Greenville for its next U.S. manufacturing facility while making a significant investment in Pitt County,” said Mark Phillips, vice president of Statewide Operations and executive director of the Eastern Office of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. “This continued growth to support the life sciences sector will provide a wide variety of workforce opportunities and harness North Carolina’s strengths within this cluster.”
Nipro is one more in a series of recent investments in N.C. from Japanese and other non-U.S. companies. Cooper hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April, which coincided with FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies’ announcement to expand its Holly Springs site. The governor and other economic development officials from North Carolina have visited Japan multiple times on economic development missions.
Other N.C. investment announcements from non-U.S.-based companies in 2024 include Novo Nordisk, SCHOTT Pharma USA, and Kyowa Kirin. (For more on those announcements, see the links at the bottom of this article.)
New positions being created by the company will range from engineers and production workers to administrative and management roles. Although wages will vary depending on the position, the average salary for the new positions will be $56,147, which exceeds the current average wage in Pitt County of $50,937. These new jobs could create a potential payroll impact of more than $13 million for the region annually, the state said.
Nipro’s project will be facilitated, in part, by a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) approved by the EIC on Wednesday. Over the course of the 12-year grant, the project is estimated to grow the state’s economy by $797 million. The grant agreement takes into account the capital investment and the tax revenues generated by the new jobs and authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $2,484,000 over 12 years. In June the Pitt County Board of Commissioners voted to approve its own economic development incentives for the project.
For other recent life sciences announcements, see these stories:
Novo Nordisk plans $4.1B Johnston Co. expansion
Global glass manufacturer to build $371M plant, create 400 jobs in Wilson
Japan-based Kyowa Kirin to invest $200 million for new pharma manufacturing complex in Sanford