Novartis to site seventh new facility in North Carolina

Novartis is expanding its US manufacturing and R&D footprint with a new facility in Morrisville, North Carolina, strengthening its end‑to‑end production capability.

The firm’s seventh new plant will manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredient (APIs) for solid dosage tablets, capsules and RNA therapeutics. The 56,200ft² facility will expand the company’s presence in North Carolina to five facilities across three sites.

This supports Novartis’ goal to enable end-to‑end manufacturing for all advanced technology platforms in the US, including small and large molecules, and radioligand, RNA therapeutics, cell and gene therapies, a first in its history.

”Last year we committed to adding seven new facilities in the US, and today we finalise our plans to expand our US manufacturing and R&D footprint in the US”

Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis said: “Last year we committed to adding seven new facilities in the US, and today we finalise our plans to expand our US manufacturing and R&D footprint in the US.

“By building a connected, end-to-end footprint, we are strengthening our ability to locally develop, produce, and deliver medicines at scale”

The announcement is part of the company’s $23 billion investment in its US operations. In February, Novartis shared plans to site its fifth radioligand therapy (RLT) manufacturing facility in Denton, Texas, expanding the company’s coast-to-coast RLT network to five facilities.

This is in addition to a planned new RLT manufacturing facility for cancer treatments in Winter Park, Florida, the first in the Southeastern US.

This latest development from Novartis aligns with a similar commitment made by Moderna last year to build its domestic manufacturing capabilities. Moderna is investing $140 million to enable end-to-end manufacturing for its mRNA medicines in the US.

The firm’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, said at the time: “By onshoring drug product manufacturing to our campus in Norwood, Massachusetts, we have completed the full manufacturing loop under one roof in the US”.