Kyowa Kirin, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, announced in February that it would build a $200 million plant in Sanford, but actually plans to invest more than twice that amount in Sanford, Lee County.
The company announced this week that its board of directors has approved plans to invest up to $530 million in what will be its first North American manufacturing facility.
Kyowa Kirin said the initial total was a conservative estimate. “As we move forward with finalizing our decision-making, we felt it was comfortable to announce a broader potential scope of investment,” Becky Levine, director of community engagement and public relations for Kyowa Kirin North America Manufacturing, told WRAL late Friday. “At this time, we have no additional updates.”
It was unclear late Friday whether the additional investment would result in job creation. The company said in February it planned to create at least 102 high-paying jobs.
However, Lee County continues to grow as a pharmaceutical manufacturing hub, and more jobs are expected to be created locally.
“We continue to see a lot of interest from other life science projects here in Lee County,” said Jimmy Randolph, who leads economic development in the area as CEO of the Sanford Regional Growth Alliance.
Kyowa Kirin’s 171,700-square-foot facility is intended to expand the company’s global manufacturing network and accelerate the development and production of biologic therapeutics for patients with rare diseases.
“The extraordinary complexity of the medicines we manufacture requires the expertise and resources that are abundantly available in Sanford and the Research Triangle region,” Kyowakirin North America Executive Vice President Paul Testa said in a statement. “We are pleased to collaborate with area universities, businesses and civic leaders to ensure our plans align with Sanford’s vision for growth.”
Construction on the facility is expected to begin later this year and be fully operational in 2027. The company said the 75-acre campus at Helix Innovation Park in the Brickyard will allow for future expansion.
The company’s investment is backed by $10 million in state and local performance-based incentives over 12 years, which is estimated to grow the state’s economy by $1.05 billion over the life of the grant, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. Employees at the plant are expected to earn an average annual salary of $91,496, nearly double the average wage in the county.
Kyowa Kirin was one of several Japanese companies to choose North Carolina to locate operations after Cooper attended an economic development conference in Tokyo last year, part of a long-running effort by Cooper to deepen relationships with the country’s business leaders.
In 2021, British pharmaceutical company Abzena announced it would build a new $213 million campus in Sanford, creating 325 jobs, in exchange for about $20 million in incentives. Pfizer then acquired the plant and assumed the incentive agreements for job creation. It is unclear how potential layoffs at Pfizer’s main plant in Sanford will affect incentive agreements at other facilities now owned by Pfizer.
Pfizer has just under 2,000 employees and contractors in Lee County, according to a person familiar with the company’s operations. The New York-based company said it had hired at least 4,000 workers in North Carolina early last year and had invested at least $1.4 billion in the state. It has also been expanding in Lee County, having spent at least $600 million over the past decade on its gene therapy facility in Sanford.
