J&J to Invest $2B in North Carolina Manufacturing Facility, Create 420 Jobs

Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday announced plans to build a $2 billion biologics manufacturing plant in Wilson, North Carolina, designed to bolster production for its cancer, immunology and neuroscience portfolios.

Once fully operational, the new facility will create 420 new jobs for full-time and highly skilled employees, according to the company. Construction work is expected to begin in the first half of 2025.

Dapo Ajayi, J&J’s vice president of Innovative Medicine Supply Chain, in a statement said that the new North Carolina manufacturing site will help the pharma “ensure a resilient supply chain for the future” and allow it to make sure that “our transformational medicines reliably and efficiently reach patients around the world.”

Tuesday’s investment is meant to help J&J meet the lofty goals that it has set for itself through the end of the decade. The pharma announced at an investor event in December 2023 that it aims to hit a compound annual growth rate of 5% to 7% between 2025 and 2030.

J&J has set the ambitious targets amid mounting challenges to its blockbuster immunotherapy Stelara—both from biosimilar entrants and pharmacy benefit managers. Last month, Cigna’s Evernorth Health Services announced that starting next year it will offer a Stelara biosimilar at $0 out-of-pocket. The biosimilar will be produced by the Evernorth-affiliate distributor Quallent Pharmaceuticals and will be dispensed through Cigna’s Accredo.

To help meet its growth goals, J&J is planning to launch 20 new medicines by 2030, as well as more than 50 product expansions. Of these, the company expects 10 assets to bring in at least $5 billion in peak year sales, while another 15 of these products have a potential of $1 billion to $5 billion.

J&J appears to be headed in the right direction. In its second-quarter earnings, announced in July 2024, the company reported 4.3% year-over-year growth with nearly $22.5 billion in sales. Stelara, despite market headwinds, grew 4.9% with Q2 revenue of $2.9 billion. The company also raised its full-year operational sales guidance to a range of $89.2 billion to $89.6 billion, citing the sales potential of its recently acquired medtech subsidiary Shockwave Medical.

To bolster its growth, J&J has also inked a couple of deals in recent months, which could help beef up its pipeline. In May 2024, the company acquired privately held biotech Proteologix for $850 million, gaining access to its pipeline of bispecific antibodies for atopic dermatitis. The same month, J&J inked a $1.25 billion contract for Numab Therapeutics’ bispecific antibody NM26, which is being developed for atopic dermatitis.