< Previous200 SEPTEMBER 2024 S I T E S EL E C T I O N than manufacturers, producing everything from medical devices and semiconductor technology to food, beverages and other consumer goods, run operations throughout the region, employing around , workers. Education Infrastructure While population growth has helped ll the growing number of jobs in the area, the Lehigh Valley’s robust interconnected K- , higher education and technical school system have played a major role in supplying workers and attracting job-creating projects. “All of the school districts feed into career and technical schools,” says Cunningham. “We have a lot of engineers coming out of our schools at Lehigh University and Lafayette College. And a lot of highly trained manufacturing workers coming out of the community colleges and the technical schools. Manufacturing remains a sweet spot because of both ends of white-collar, blue-collar talent. ose collar colors have been shaded over the years, but for both the design and o ce side and the shop oor side there’s been a good talent pipeline.” Access to Market With a steady stream of manufacturers continuing to expand in the area, this sector has grown to represent % of Lehigh Valley’s GDP, surpassing the nation where manufacturing represents % of the economy. e sector’s large presence in the area has much to do with the region’s location. “ e Lehigh Valley really is an inland empire,” o the Port Newark Container Terminal miles away that’s operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, says Cunningham, serving the vast East Coast metropolis with almost one-third of the United States consumers within an eight-hour truck drive. “Particularly if you’re in industrial manufacturing, you’ve got to be able to move your product in and out, and every extra mile of transportation costs money.” Available Sites With these bene ts, it’s no wonder many companies are expanding in the Lehigh Valley region. And as demand continues to increase, Cunningham and his team are working to make B Y THE NUMBERS PENNSYLVANIA Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure in $000s: 5,471,969 Number of NCRCs: 40,681 | % Improved 2022–23: 2.33% Business Tax Climate Rank Change 2023–2024: +2 Industrial power cost per kWh: $8.21 Total Rev. as Share of Total Expenses, FY 2007-21: 100.7% 2023 Workers’ Comp Index Rate: 1.27 Selected Top Projects by Capital Investment COMPANY CITY INVESTMENT $M Spark Therapeutics Philadelphia 575 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius Philadelphia 200 Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe Chambersburg 123 Campbell Soup Co. Hanover 72 Frank B Fuhrer Holdings Salem Township 70 Source: Conway Projects Database (RIGHT) The city of Bethlehem is located in eastern Pennsylvania. Photo: Getty Images | Map & chart courtesy of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2024 201 room for more. Like many regional economic development agencies nationwide, creating shovel-ready sites has become a priority. “You know, the benefits are somewhat obvious, particularly in Pennsylvania, where you’ve got most of your government, including your schools, running primarily off of property tax. The more that tax base grows, the more you can keep rates in check and be helpful to businesses,” says Cunningham. “But the challenge has become — when you’re in a growth market, when demand is high — to continue to have supply, to continue to have properties that are in good locations that are somewhat ready to go.” The state’s new PA SITES program, initially launched as a pilot program in September 2023, strives to mitigate this problem. Communities within the Lehigh Valley and throughout the state now have the opportunity to apply for grant funding for infrastructure, utility and other improvements at proposed sites. The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) received over 100 applications seeking to access more than $235 million for site development, demonstrating the program’s necessity and potential. By July, PA SITES was officially established and received $400 million in the state’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget. The grants awarded through this program are intended to serve as gap financing for strategic sites to help reduce development risks for businesses. The Lehigh Valley’s Allentown Commercial and Industrial Development Authority was among the first seven recipients awarded funding from the program’s pilot round. The organization has received over $1.1 million from PA SITES to run utility extensions for water, sewer and natural gas from existing city infrastructure to the proposed site, which is approximately half a mile. “Population growth, education infrastructure, access to market and available buildings or land to develop. I think all that ranks higher in the end than incentives and other things that economic developers get involved in,” says Cunningham. “I always say it’s not necessarily that you’re hitting home runs, but you’re hitting a lot of singles and doubles, which add up to having a robust sector of employment and economic growth.” Losing Pounds and Gaining Partners Key to North Carolina Life Sciences Momentum Denmark’s Novo Nordisk has been producing and growing its business in Clayton, North Carolina, for years. It’s not about to make an all-in bet on the state without having its ducks in a row. In June the -year-old company, whose sales in the fi rst half of reached $. billion, announced it would invest $. billion and add . million sq. ft. of space at the Clayton campus in order to produce and develop injectable treatments “for people with obesity and other serious chronic diseases such as diabetes.” e Clayton site produces injectable products and also includes an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) complex. Multiple reports indicate the expansion will in part produce more of two products in high demand: weight loss drug Wegovy and Ozempic, a drug indicated for diabetes that is also well known and highly used for weight loss applications. e two drugs are in a class of medications called glucagon- like peptide receptor agonists (GLP- RAs) that mimic a hormone (GLP-) produced in the gut “that helps control insulin and blood glucose levels and promotes feelings of satiety,” as a May by ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com North Carolina S T A TE SPO TLIGHT B Y THE NUMBERS NORTH CAROLINA Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure in $000s: 3,871,423 Number of NCRCs: 652,151 | Percent Improved 2022–23: 8.55% Business Tax Climate Rank Change 2023–2024: +1 Industrial power cost per kWh: $6.54 Total Rev. as Share of Total Expenses, FY 2007-21: 106.6% 2023 Workers’ Comp Index Rate: 1.16 Selected Top Projects by Capital Investment COMPANY CITY INVESTMENT $M Novo Nordisk Clayton 4,100 Fujifi lm Diosynth Holly Springs 1,200 Cummins Rocky Mount 580 Ross Stores Randleman 450 Dominion Energy NC Rougemont 400 Source: Conway Projects Database 202 SEPTEMBER 2024 S I T E S EL E C T I O N Photo: Adobe Stock204 SEPTEMBER 2024 S I T E S EL E C T I O N University of Chicago School of Medicine article describes. And they are expensive. So is the Clayton project. e investment represents % of the $. billion Novo Nordisk has pledged to invest in production this year, which encompasses multiple projects in Kalundborg, Denmark, as well as an expansion in Chartres, France. e company also has manufacturing sites in Brazil and China. e company’s manufacturing portfolio employs nearly , people and produces nearly half of the world’s insulin, GLP-RA medicines and other medicines that treat rare diseases and growth disorders. A CNBC report also noted that Eli Lilly’s recent investment in North Carolina is motivated in part by demand for its GLP-RA products Zepbound and Mounjaro. e company pledged a $ million, -job expansion at Research Triangle Park (RFP) in January . “Q Mounjaro and Zepbound sales in the U.S. were positively impacted by channel stocking that the company estimates totaled high teens to mid-s as a percent of U.S. sales,” the company reported in August. An increase from $. billion to $ billion to be invested at Lilly’s site in Lebanon, Indiana, announced in May, was directly tied to increased production of the APIs for Mounjaro and Zepbound. Since , Lilly has committed more than $ billion to develop new manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Europe, including roughly $ billion to new manufacturing facilities in North Carolina in RTP ($. billion total) and in Concord. As for Novo Nordisk, the company over -plus years has expanded nine times in North Carolina, investing nearly $ billion. Its $. billion API plant investment in was at that time the largest life sciences investment in North Carolina history, only to be eclipsed by this new project. “Clayton was the fi rst manufacturing site for Novo Nordisk in the U.S., and this new, large-scale investment confi rms the continued importance of our production facilities there as cornerstones of our company’s growth,” said Henrik Wulff , executive vice president, Product Supply, Quality & IT, Novo Nordisk, in the company’s announcement. “For decades, we have partnered to foster a well-trained, dedicated and diverse local workforce in North Carolina. In Clayton and across our global manufacturing sites, we are driven by one purpose: to deliver more for the millions of people living with chronic diseases — and this facility will help us achieve just that.” Enviable Workforce Development Network e expansion will add , new jobs to the , Novo Nordisk already employs in the region, including those who work at an oral fi nished products tableting and packaging facility in Durham that opened in . But as Wulff ’s comment suggests, perhaps just as impressive as those numbers is the lineup workforce development partners the company proudly showcases. Just as Lilly partners with universities and with such institutions as Wake Tech and Durham Tech, Novo Nordisk, in addition to working with the NC Life Sciences Organization (NCLifeSci, formerly known as NCBIO), the North Carolina Chamber and the North Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, is partnering with the following: North Carolina Central University ’s Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE), Novo Nordisk expects a planned $4.1 billion expansion in Clayton to be complete in the 2027-2029 time frame. Rendering and photo courtesy of Novo Nordisk206 SEPTEMBER 2024 S I T E S EL E C T I O N was recently awarded a $6.2 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant by the U.S. Economic Development Administration thanks to a North Carolina Biotechnology Center-led consortium. NCCU’s research enterprise “will lead the establishment of six training hubs at the state’s historically Black colleges and universities — Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, Livingstone College, Saint Augustine University, Winston-Salem State University — and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, North Carolina’s sole historically American Indian university,” said a university statement. Companies contributing matching funds to various workforce initiatives to be addressed by the grant monies include Novo Nordisk, Biogen, Pfizer and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Johnston Community College (in Clayton’s Johnston County) operates a 30,000-sq.-ft. Workforce Development Center focused on life sciences programming, business training and workforce development in biotech and other sciences that collaborates with the county’s public schools and Johnston County Economic Development. Among the programs at the college are an Associate of Applied Science (AAS) “It took us a century to reach 40 million patients, but 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, P resident and CEO, Novo Nordisk, on the company’s $4.1 billion investment in Clayton, North Carolina S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2024 207 Bioprocess Technology degree program and a BioWork certificate. In January 2023, Novo Nordisk donated $6 million to Durham Tech to support its life sciences programs and a new training center. By February 2024 the company said it was already seeing results as a Biotech AAS degree program gets off the ground, equipment is upgraded, a cohort of Durham Tech apprentices begins working with the company and biotech career awareness programs reach into the area’s middle schools and high schools. “Durham Tech’s partnership with Novo Nordisk is truly a model for what collaboration among community colleges and industry should look like,” said Durham Tech Life Sciences Director Telicia Hunter. “Every student I have spoken to is over the moon about joining a company that not only cares about their products but also them as employees and the community.” Durham Tech also has partnered in the past on custom training for Morinaga America Foods, maker of HI- CHEW candy, which announced in July it will create 204 jobs with a $136 million expansion in Mebane in Orange County. JOCO WORKS , presented by Novo Nordisk, is an industry-led collaborative supported by education, business, civic, and government partners created to meet the Johnston County, North Carolina (JOCO) workforce needs of the future. The collaborative culminates in a curriculum and an in-person career exposition specifically for 8th grade students. The company is one of many working with the Raleigh-based school’s Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) at North Carolina State University . Among those with seats on BTEC’s advisory board are BioNetwork (the North Carolina Community College System’s life science training initiative) and FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, currently building a large-scale contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) cell culture plant in Holly Springs that, with an additional investment announced in April, will now attract $3.2 billion in investment, create 725 jobs by 2023 and another 680 jobs by 2031. Before it’s even complete, the site is attracting tenant interest from the likes of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Supply Group. “We are pleased to continue investing to grow our cell culture manufacturing 208 SEPTEMBER 2024 S I T E S EL E C T I O N capabilities in North Carolina in anticipation of the growing outsourcing needs of biopharma companies,” said Toshihisa Iida, corporate vice president of FUJIFILM Corporation and chairman of FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, in April. “North Carolina continues to offer advantageous and well-established benefits specific to Fujifilm’s biomanufacturing business such as sustainable energy resources, infrastructure for future growth and a strong pool of technical talent.” Among the other places FUJIFILM Diosynth is expanding is Denmark. As it happens, the Novo Nordisk Foundation also funds Accelerated Innovation in Manufacturing Biologics (AIM-Bio), a six-year, $27 million collaborative launched in 2019 that links complementary programs at NCSU and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson last year led a delegation to Denmark and Prague (home to NC State’s European Center) that included visits to DTU, Novo Nordisk and other collaborating organizations as well as meetings and visits with companies in Czechia into the second year of an internship program with NCSU, including Akkodis, Chapman Taylor, Czechinvest, Loxia, P-LAB, Quanti, Solek, Simpleway and Zentiva. Located on NCSU’s Centennial Campus under the auspices of the university’s College of Engineering, BTEC has two facilities encompassing 82,700 sq. ft. and featuring “more than $18 million of industry-standard equipment and a simulated cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) pilot plant facility capable of producing biopharmaceutical products using cell growth and expression, recovery, and “For decades, we have partnered to foster a well- trained, dedicated and diverse local workforce in North Carolina.” — Henrik Wulff, Executive Vice President, Product Supply, Quality & IT, Novo Nordisk S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2024 209 purification processes.” It was there that Chancellor Woodson on May 31 announced the creation of the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at NC State, to be funded by a $30 million, five-year award from the $100 million Bezos Earth Fund, dedicated to establishing a network of open-access R&D centers focused on sustainable protein alternatives. The award will support research on three types of sustainable proteins: plant- based products; precision fermentation to produce proteins and nutrients that can be used in food formulations; and cultivated meat grown from animal cells. One of the center’s leaders will be Bill Aimutis, executive director of the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab in Kannapolis, outside of Charlotte. Twenty industry partners are also involved, in addition to Duke University, Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (NC A&T), and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNC-P). “This effort is all about expanding the sustainable protein knowledge base and ecosystem,” said James T. Ryan Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State Rohan Shirwaiker, principal investigator on the grant and co-director of the center. “The center’s capabilities and partnerships will add a new dimension to expand NC State’s biotechnology and advanced manufacturing expertise.” Thus does a life sciences economy that suppresses appetite with one hand and seeks to whet it with the other continue to develop an increasingly global roster and virtuous cycle of employers, talent, institutions and innovative programs. Job growth in North Carolina’s biopharmaceutical industry is expected to increase by 25% from 32,000 in 2023 to 40,000 by 2026.Next >