Pharma’s U.S. manufacturing investments skyrocketed in 2025, with major companies promising more than $370 billion over the next five years, according to a market trend report from DPR Construction, which counts pharma giants like Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Novartis and Roche among its clients
“It's unprecedented,” said Michael Marston, life sciences core market co-leader at DPR. “We've never seen anything like that, at least in my career, which is over 35 years.”
That dollar amount continues to tick up, with drugmakers announcing new projects at a steady clip. Most recently, Swiss pharma behemoth Novartis unveiled plans to build a new radioligand therapy manufacturing facility in Winter Park, Florida, as part of a $23 billion U.S. investment pledge announced in April 2025.
While there were outliers, Marston said a major chunk of the investments are concentrated in a few key hubs: Pennsylvania and North Carolina, which are more established, as well as emerging centers like Ohio and Texas.
“The cities, municipalities and states, are making it attractive for businesses from a tax perspective and from a local community support perspective to go to those areas,” he said. “For example, in North Carolina, it’s not just tax incentives, but the community themselves. The local education — community colleges and certainly the larger private or public colleges — support the life sciences community where they offer majors and develop workers that can be sustained in these new facilities.”
Here’s a closer look at some key investments in each of these hubs.
Established: North Carolina
Anchored by its Research Triangle region that stretches across three major institutions, North Carolina is already home to 108 biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. Thanks to 2025 investment pledges, that number is set to increase.
Novartis broke ground on a 700,000-square-foot flagship manufacturing hub in December. Slated to open in by 2028, the project includes a new facility in Morrisville and a new site in Durham, as well as expansion of an existing Novartis facility in Durham. The company expects to create 700 new jobs in North Carolina by 2030.
J&J is also spending big in North Carolina. In early 2025, the company broke ground on a $2 billion manufacturing facility project in Wilson. The drugmaker followed that up with a $2 billion deal in September for manufacturing space at Fujifilm Biotechnologies’ Holly Springs location. It also recently announced plans to build a second multibillion-dollar facility in Wilson.
Another big player ramping up North Carolina spending is Biogen, which plans to invest an additional $2 billion in its existing manufacturing footprint in Research Triangle Park.
Emerging: Texas
Everything’s bigger in Texas, the saying goes, and that’s true of Eli Lilly’s plans to build a new $6.5 billion manufacturing facility in Houston, marking one of the state’s biggest life sciences investments. Lilly expects the project will bring 615 high-wage jobs for engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, as well as 4,000 additional jobs during construction. The facility is also significant because it will manufacture Lilly's highly-anticipated oral GLP-1, which is expected to receive approval in March.
With its business-friendly environment and Texas Medical Center’s biomanufacturing project, TMC BioPort, the state proved an attractive investment location for other companies in 2025, too. Novartis plans to build two new radioligand therapy manufacturing facilities in Florida and Texas, and in October, the U.K.’s AstraZeneca opened an expanded manufacturing facility in Coppell to double the production of its high blood potassium treatment, Lokelma.
Established: Pennsylvania
With Philadelphia a long-established pharma hotspot and Pittsburgh an emerging one, Pennsylvania’s life sciences sector employs 100,000 workers across nearly 3,100 companies that have secured more than 10,700 new life sciences patents over the past five years.
The life sciences industry continues to pour manufacturing investments into the state. GSK announced plans in September to build an additional new biologics flex factory at Upper Merion focused on medicines for respiratory disease and cancer, with construction planned to start this year. It’s part of a bigger $1.2 billion investment in advanced manufacturing facilities, AI and advanced digital technologies that will also include new capabilities.
In addition, J&J kicked off 2026 by announcing plans to build a next-generation cell therapy manufacturing site in Pennsylvania.
Emerging: Ohio
With deep manufacturing roots and new initiatives to train biomanufacturing workers, position Ohio communities for life sciences growth and add biomanufacturing to the Ohio Manufacturing Competency Model, the Buckeye State was an attractive landing spot for several pharma investors in 2025.
Among them is Amgen, which in April announced a $900 million expansion of its Ohio manufacturing facility as part of a $1.4 billion investment plan it said has created 750 jobs.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA broke ground in June on a pharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D facility in Columbus. The company also pledged $1 billion by 2030 to further expand its US manufacturing and R&D capabilities.
