2 Huge East Coast Deals Display Biomanufacturing's Continued Momentum

Two just-announced biomanufacturing deals on the East Coast highlight the continuing surge of this sector of the life sciences real estate market, buoyed by ramped-up vaccine production, the growing needs of biotech firms and a desire to increase domestic manufacturing capacity.  

BeiGene, an oncology firm, just inked a deal for a 42-acre manufacturing site in Hopewell, New Jersey, which will feature commercial-stage manufacturing, clinical research and the BeiGene Center for Pharmacovigilance Innovation, Endpoints News reports. Construction is expected to be complete in mid-2023. 

Located roughly 60 miles from the firm’s existing facility in Ridgefield Park and 10 miles from Princeton University, the forthcoming Hopewell campus will produce both biologics and small molecule cancer treatments, and greatly expand the company’s supply chain, in which all manufacturing is currently taking place in China. 

Further south, in Holly Springs, North Carolina, a new $550M plant for California-based Amgen was also announced, part of a growing number of firms to set up biomanufacturing sites in the Research Triangle. 

The drug substance plant, expected to break ground this year in what will be the Friendship Innovation Park and finish by 2028, will create more than 350 jobs, including engineers, technicians, quality, management and administrative roles, and compliments the firm’s recently announced packaging plant in Ohio.  

Amgen joins Fujifilm Diosynth and Gilead, two other companies that recently expanded to Holly Springs.