RALEIGH, N.C. — A more than $1 billion investment is bringing almost 700 new jobs to Wake County. The announcement, made late last week by FUJIFILM, is part of North Carolina’s booming biomanufacturing industry.
According to a 2023 report by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, North Carolina had about 32,000 biopharmaceutical jobs across the state in 2022. That same report says there will be an estimated 40,000 of those jobs by 2026.
North Carolina State University’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) is helping prepare as many people as it can to work in that field.
“Understand the mechanics of life and apply them to make a product that then is helpful for humans in general,” Dr. Jennifer Pancorbo, the director of industry programs and research at N.C. State’s BTEC, said. “I came to the region back in 2005, and I can tell in the past almost 15 years, 20 years, how much the growth has happened.”
Pancorbo is a chemical engineer at heart and says N.C. State’s BTEC allows students to really experience the biomanufacturing field before they get into that career.
“It gives the students enough space to see how, industrially, the systems look like without it being massively big,” Pancorbo said.
“Super exciting to see all the interest, all the technologies that have, sprout because of these ideas and how RTP, Wake County and North Carolina in general have positioned themselves to serve these industries,” Pancorbo said. “That all is putting a lot of stress on the machinery of training and education and making sure that the state has the infrastructure to sustain these groups, but also to produce the workforce that is necessary.”
Biomanufacturing can range from working with vaccines, to creating fertilizers and even many everyday products.
“Some enzymes are used to maintain the bread soft and fresh over time, sometimes use as part of detergents to take stains away,” Pancorbo said.
Pancorbo says they’re working to meet workforce demands, but they’re beginning to max out.
“We are starting to get to the point of filling our capacity. We don't have more classrooms, we don't have more labs, we don't have more personnel to help train all these people,” Pancorbo said.
She’s hopeful they’ll find ways to keep up with the needs of the industry so that companies continue looking to the Tar Heel state for expansion opportunities.
“Hopefully that place will be North Carolina, and that will mean they will need more employees to help support their operations. And hopefully we will play a part in helping that workforce grow,” Pancorbo said.
N.C. State’s BTEC does outreach to middle and high schools to introduce young students to the career path, partners with community colleges, offers degree programs and helps with industry training for companies that come to North Carolina.
Pancorbo says they’re working towards creating a larger center on N.C. State’s campus known as the North Carolina Facility for Advanced Biomanufacturing to help increase their educational capacity.
The FUJIFILM expansion in Holly Springs is expected to employ 1,400 people by 2031. Positions at the facility will include engineers, scientists and manufacturing personnel. Salaries will vary by position but the average annual wage is about $110,000.