Novo Nordisk will invest $4.1 billion and add 1,000 jobs as it builds a second “fill and finishing” manufacturing facility in Johnston County to help meet surging demand for its weight loss and diabetes drugs, the company announced Monday.
The average salary for the jobs will be in the range of $65,000 to $70,000 per year, which compares to an average of about $45,000 a year in Johnston County, says county Economic Development Director Chris Johnson.
More than 65% of Johnston County’s workforce now travel outside the county for work, says Johnson. He called Novo Nordisk’s investment “incredible,” adding that the high-paying jobs will also mean a lot to the county of about 235,000 residents southeast of Raleigh.
“Anytime we can provide good-paying jobs for residents in Johnston County, it’s a win,” says Johnson. He added that the ripple effect would benefit about 25 counties in the region. “This is a huge win for Johnston County, but also a huge win for eastern North Carolina.” Johnston County is the fourth-fastest growing county in North Carolina since 2022.
County officials didn’t disclose the amount of incentives being provided. There is no state Job Development Incentive Program allocation as part of the expansion.
The Novo Nordisk called the announcement one of the largest manufacturing investments in the Danish company’s history. Novo is best-known as the maker of Wegovy, Saxenda, Ozempic and other GLP-1s, and also makes a number of varieties of insulin.
The expansion will add 1.4 million square feet of production space for aseptic manufacturing and finished production processes, doubling the combined square footage of all three of the company’s existing facilities in North Carolina. It will also add 1,000 new jobs, along with nearly 2,500 Novo Nordisk employees now working in the region.
“It took us a century to reach 40 million patients, but through this expansion and continued investment in our global production, we’re building Novo Nordisk’s ability to serve millions more people living with serious chronic diseases in the future,” said Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, in a release. “This is yet another real signal of our efforts to scale up our production to meet the growing global need for our life-changing medicines and the patients of tomorrow.”
Early clearing and foundational work are underway to prepare the 56-acre facility footprint. Construction will be finalized between 2027 and 2029. Around 2,000 external contractors will be engaged at the height of the project, according to the company.
The Johnston County town of Clayton was the first U.S. manufacturing site for Novo Nordisk, and the new investment confirms its importance to the company’s growth, said Novo Nordisk Executive Vice President Henrik Wulff in a release. “In Clayton and across our global manufacturing sites, we are driven by one purpose: to deliver more for the millions of people living with chronic diseases.”
Johnston County Commission Chair Butch Lawter called the announcement a historic day. “Thirty-one years ago, Novo Nordisk decided to make a new home here in Clayton. Then, in 2016, they announced a new facility right across the street – the single largest life sciences investment on state record at the time. Today, they’re breaking that record again… with a third facility, 1,000 new jobs and a vote of confidence in the partnerships we have forged in the community over the decades.”
In 2024, Novo Nordisk will increase actual investments in production and plans to invest about $6.8 billion in production compared to actual investments of $3.9 billion last year to increase supply, according to the company.
Novo Nordisk has five production sites located in Denmark, the U.S., France, Brazil and China. All Novo Nordisk’s medicines are manufactured at these sites and subsequently distributed to patients around the globe. This includes producing almost half of the world’s insulin, GLP-1 medicines for the treatment of diabetes and obesity and medicines to treat rare diseases such as haemophilia and growth disorders.
Novo Nordisk’s manufacturing unit has almost 20,000 employees. The company was founded in 1923 and employs about 66,000 people in 80 countries and markets its products in around 170 countries.