Novo Nordisk announces record $4.1B, 1,000-job expansion in Johnston County

Novo Nordisk is planning a $4.1 billion expansion that is expected to create 1,000 new, high-paying jobs in Johnston County — the biggest life-sciences investment in state history, according to economic developers.

The Danish drugmaker, which has long manufactured and packaged treatments for diabetes and obesity at facilities in Johnston and Durham counties, has been ramping up global production to meet surging demand for diabetes and weight-loss treatments such as Ozempic and Wegovy.

The company saw global net sales surge 31% last year due in large part to the popularity of those drugs and is in the midst of an $11 million global manufacturing expansion to keep up with demand.

The Johnston County project is one of the biggest investments in Novo Nordisk’s 101-year history, the company said Monday. And it comes eight years after it committed $1.8 billion to build another facility — focused on active pharmaceutical ingredients — in the county. The company, already one of the biggest private employers in Johnston County, currently employs 2,500 people in the state.

“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,” Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, Novo Nordisk’s chief executive, said in a statement. “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.”

WRAL News previously reported details of the expansion.

Incentives, 25 football fields

The new facility is expected to be nearly four times the size of the company’s existing nearby facility — which currently produces and packages medications for diabetes and obesity — and it is expected to double Novo Nordisk’s manufacturing footprint in North Carolina.

The expansion will span 1.4 million square feet and support similar functions for medications that treat obesity and other chronic diseases — production space that is about as big as 25 football fields. About 2,000 external contractors are expected to be employed during the peak of construction, the company said.

Construction is underway, the company said, and the project is expected to be completed in phases between 2027 and 2029.

The announcement came after county commissioners approved an economic development agreement tied to 100 of the new jobs and the construction. Commissioners approved amendments to a 2022 economic development agreement with the company that would pay a grant over 12 years, provided the company hits hiring and construction goals. Specifics of the amended incentives package weren’t immediately available. Officials said the project is expected to generate millions of added tax dollars for state, county and local governments.

“The magnitude both in the [company's] investment and the jobs is going to be extremely substantial,” said Chris Johnson, Johnston County’s director of economic development.

Johnston County is part of the BioPharma Crescent, the five-county region in Eastern North Carolina that is home to a large cluster of biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Over the past 30 years, the county has worked to boost infrastructure and offer workforce programs to compete for advanced manufacturing jobs such as the ones at Novo Nordisk. The drugmaker has played a key role in helping transform a local economy long dependent on tobacco and other agricultural commodities, county economic development officials said.

The announcement also gives Johnston County residents more opportunity to stay closer to home; more than half Johnston’s workforce travels outside the county for employment.

The jobs announced Monday are expected to pay an annual average of at least $69,000, according to the county. That's about 36% more than the county average, according to the state Department of Commerce.

“There was a time — when I graduated from high school many many years ago — when the opportunities did not exist in Johnson County if you didn't go into agriculture careers,” said Commissioner Dickie Braswell. “You had to pretty much leave the county. And now we’ve got good-paying jobs, and people who graduate from our schools can choose where they want to work. They've got opportunities. And I just think it's great to be a part of that.”

Economic development deals tend to be highly secretive; companies often request anonymity as they weigh expansion plans, negotiate with state and local governments and line up real estate. Information about such deals are often exempt from open records laws. The Novo Nordisk expansion had long been referred to by a code name — “Project Ace."

“This economic development agreement will signal to the world that Johnson County is open to business and it supports its long standing business partners,” Shaylah Nunn Jones, a director of public affairs and communications for Novo Nordisk, told commissioners Monday as they considered the incentives package.

The state Department of Commerce on Tuesday is scheduled to hold a regular meeting of its Economic Investment Committee, which reviews and approves state incentives deals. A spokesman for the department declined to say whether the state was considering an incentives package for the drugmaker. The department typically doesn’t disclose details about incentives deals until they’re voted on.

“Novo Nordisk’s decision to invest an additional $4.1 billion into its North Carolina operations offers further proof of the state’s leading international role in the life science industry,” North Carolina Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders said in a statement. “... Continued investments in our world-class educational and workforce training systems remain the key to bringing economic development success to North Carolina, long into the future.”

Future expansion possible

The design of the new facility allows for future expansion with no impact on production, the company said.

Since the beginning of last year, Novo Nordisk has snapped up more than 200 acres near its existing operations through a sequence of land deals worth at least $14.3 million, Johnston County property records show. Less than a year ago, Johnston commissioners agreed to rezone more than 100 acres to allow for industrial use by Novo Nordisk near its existing Johnston County operations. Mich of the assemblage is off Powhatan Road, east of the intersection of U.S. 70 and Interstate 42. The company has sought roughly two dozen building permits during the past two years, according to records with the Johnston County Building Inspections Department.

Demand for the GLP-1 class of drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic — which are effective but can be extremely expensive — has been outstripping supply ever since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began approving them for a variety of conditions.

The growth has prompted Novo Nordisk and competitors such as Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound, to invest heavily in production capacity. Since 2020, Eli Lilly has committed more than $16 billion to develop new manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Europe, including locations in Research Triangle Park and Concord.

The expansion comes as North Carolina officials attempt to negotiate lower prices with Novo Nordisk amid broader pricing pushback from some insurers and federal lawmakers. North Carolina State Health Plan officials in April canceled coverage of the drugs for weight-loss citing the high cost of coverage for at least 22,000 state employees and family members who get their health care through the state plan — a move that Novo Nordisk called irresponsible.

State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who is chairman of the State Health Plan's board, said the expansion was good news. "I appreciate them being a taxpayer and employer in North Carolina," Folwell, who has led the plan's efforts to negotiate lower prices, said in a text message. "... My issue is with what they charge those that teach protect and serve for weight-loss drugs."