Drug firm Roche to create 6,500 construction jobs with $50bn US investment

The company said that the investment would come over the next five years and would involve:

• The expansion and upgrade of manufacturing and distribution facilities in Kentucky, Indiana, New Jersey, Oregon, and California;
• A new gene therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania;
• A new 900,000 sq ft manufacturing centre to support Roche’s portfolio of next-generation weight loss medicines, the location of which has not yet been announced;
• A new manufacturing facility for continuous glucose monitoring in Indiana;
• A new research and development (R&D) centre in Massachusetts;
• Expansion and upgrade of existing pharmaceuticals and diagnostics R&D centres in Arizona, Indiana, and California.

Roche said that once all of the new and expanded manufacturing capacity comes online, it would export more medicines from the US than it imports.

Its US footprint already consists of 13 manufacturing and 15 R&D sites across the pharmaceutical and diagnostics divisions.

Thomas Schinecker, Roche Group CEO, said, “We are proud of our 110-year legacy in the United States which has been a key driver for jobs, innovation and the creation of intellectual property in the US, across both our Pharmaceutical and Diagnostics Divisions. Our investments of USD 50 billion over the next five years will lay the foundation for our next era of innovation and growth, benefiting patients in the US and around the world.”