HOLLY SPRINGS, N.C. — The monolithic gray buildings that have popped up around Holly Springs may not outwardly stir excitement. But they’re signs of a once-in-a-generation boon for the former plantation town, once dubbed the “poverty pocket” of wealthy Wake County.
The drugmaker Genentech is spending $700 million to build here, while Amgen has pledged $1.5 billion to construct a manufacturing plant. And in September, pharmaceutical contractor FUJIFILM Biotechnologies opened the first phase of a $3 billion project that will create 1,400 jobs.
“It’s unbelievable, actually. [It] seems like every day I hear of another large pharma company building a $2 billion plant down here,” remarked Norman “Ned” Sharpless, former acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. When he started his medical career in North Carolina back in the 1980s, it wasn’t exactly a wasteland, though that is the first word that comes to mind. It certainly wasn’t a hot spot for pharmaceutical investment, as it is now.
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