Japanese pharma company to invest up to $530M in Sanford

Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin — which in February said it would build a $200 million plant in Sanford — is actually planning to spend more than twice that amount in the Lee County city.

The company said this week that its board approved plans to invest up to $530 million for what would be its first North American manufacturing facility.

Kyowa Kirin said its initial total was a conservative estimate. “As we progressed through the final stages of decision-making, we felt comfortable releasing the broader potential scope of our investment,” Becky Levine, Kyowa Kirin North America Manufacturing’s director of community engagement and public affairs, told WRAL late Friday. “At this point in time, we don’t have any additional updates.”

It was unclear late Friday whether the additional investment would bring more jobs. The company said in February that it planned to create at least 102 high-paying jobs.

But more jobs are expected regionally as Lee County continues to grow as a hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

“We are continuing to see a significant amount of interest from other life sciences projects here in Lee County,” said Jimmy Randolph, the lead economic developer for the area as chief executive of the Sanford Area Growth Alliance.

Kyowa Kirin’s 171,700-square-foot plant is intended to expand the company’s global manufacturing network and speed its development and production of biologic therapies for people with rare diseases.

"The extraordinary complexity of the medicines we manufacture requires specialized skills and resources that are in plentiful supply in Sanford and the Research Triangle region," Paul Testa, an executive vice president at Kyowa Kirin North America, said in a statement. "We're excited to collaborate with area colleges, universities, businesses and civic leaders to ensure that our plans align with Sanford's vision for growth."

Construction of the facility is expected to begin in the second half of this year and become fully operational in 2027. The company says that the 75-acre campus at Helix Innovation Park at The Brickyard will allow for future expansion.

The company’s investment is being supported by performance-based state and local incentives of $10 million over 12 years, which are estimated to grow the state’s economy by $1.05 billion over the course of grant, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Jobs at the plant are expected to pay an average annual salary of $91,496 — nearly double the county’s average wage.

Kyowa Kirin was among several Japanese companies to select North Carolina for operations after Cooper attended an economic development conference in Tokyo last year — part of a years-long effort by Cooper to make inroads with business leaders in the country.

Lee County is home to several other pharmaceutical companies, including a different Japanese company, Astellas, as well as a large operation by drugmaker Pfizer, which is eyeing layoffs after a failed clinical trial for a muscular dystrophy treatment.

In 2021 British pharmaceutical company Abzena announced it would create 325 jobs in Sanford at a new $213 million campus, in exchange for nearly $20 million in incentives. Pfizer later bought that plant and took over the incentives deal for job creation; it’s not clear how any potential layoffs at the main Pfizer plant in Sanford might affect the incentives deal for that separate facility down the road that Pfizer now also owns.

Pfizer has just under 2,000 employees and contractors in Lee County, according to the sources familiar with its operations. Early last year, the New York-based company employed at least 4,000 workers in North Carolina and had invested at least $1.4 billion in the state. And it had been expanding in Lee County, spending at least $600 million on gene therapy facilities in Sanford over the past decade.