Fujifilm Plans a Cell Culture CDMO Site in North Carolina, Creating 700+ Job Opportunities

In January, Japan’s Fujifilm had announced plans for a $2 billion investment to build a large cell culture CDMO facility in the US. On March 19th, the company officially revealed the selection of Holly Springs, North Carolina, as the location. The company aims to build the largest end-to-end cell culture production facility in North America, creating over 700 highly-skilled jobs by the end of 2028.

Holly Springs CDMO Facility

The manufacturing facility will include 8 x 20,000L bioreactors with the potential to expand to a further 24 x 20,000L bioreactors based on market demand. What’s more, it will provide automated fill-finish, assembly, packaging, and labeling services besides producing large amounts of drug substances and cell culture products.

“The United States is the world’s biggest market for biopharmaceuticals. I am pleased that through this large investment in the U.S.A, we are able to support the development and manufacturing of new drugs that can help fulfill unmet medical needs”, said Kenji Sukeno, President of Fujifilm.

The facility will operate under the subsidiary of Fujifilm, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB), and is currently expected to be operational by 2025.

Why Holly Springs?

Fujifilm picked Holly Springs to utilize the technical talents, local resources, partners with the right competencies, and sustainability for future growth. Moreover, it has a great pool of clean energy resources. The newly established site will incorporate designs to fully utilize clean energy, including the water and waste disposal recycling system.

On top of that, FDB has another facility in Morrisville, North Carolina, and has collaborated with the local officials and state for years.

Facility Investment in Cell Products

Fujifilm has been investing in cell product manufacturing sites over the years. It has infused 928 million in the Hillerød, Denmark site to double the capacity in June 2020. The facility in Holly Springs is said to be similar to the Hillerød site.

In 2019, Fujifilm began to run its 3rd cell culture media manufacturing site at Tilburg, Netherlands, alongside facilities in Japan and the US. It also started operating the human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) production facility in March.

Fujifilm has set goals to reach annual revenues of around 1.8 billion (200 billion yen) for its Bio CDMO business by the fiscal year ending March 2025 and amplify the annual growth rate to 20% by the fiscal year ending March 2026.

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Author

Tyler Chen

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