Novartis announces major NC expansion, 700 jobs across three Triangle sites
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has pledged to hire hundreds of additional workers in the Triangle as it aims to grow its U.S. manufacturing supply chain.
In a statement Wednesday, Gov. Josh Stein’s office announced that Novartis plans to add 700 new jobs through 2030 and invest more than $770 million across sites in Durham and Morrisville. This effort would nearly double the company’s local footprint and is being backed, in part, by North Carolina’s third economic incentive to Novartis in the past decade.
Wednesday morning, the N.C. Economic Investment Committee awarded Novartis’s gene therapy division a nearly $7.6 million incentive grant to create 380 positions between Wake and Durham counties. To receive incentives, the company must pay these workers a minimum average salary of $111,161.
“By building a full, end-to-end manufacturing presence in North Carolina for our broader portfolio, we are expanding our capacity to deliver medical breakthroughs,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a statement. “Securing a more resilient U.S. supply chain, and investing in the local communities that make our mission possible.”
Novartis will occupy more than 200,000 square feet inside the Pathway Triangle biomedical facility in Morrisville, the campus development firm King Street Properties announced Wednesday. In a statement, King Street called it “one the largest leases in the Triangle this year.”
In Durham, Novartis said it will expand its existing site and build two new facilities. Novartis chose to expand in the Triangle over a finalist site near Dallas, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. Companies seeking North Carolina’s main incentive award, the job development investment grant, must consider alternative locations to be eligible.
Third NC incentive for Novartis
This isn’t the first state incentive Novartis has received — and not all of them have succeeded.
In May 2018, North Carolina awarded the Novartis gene therapy division (then called AveXis, later renamed Novartis Gene Therapies) a job development investment grant to build a new manufacturing center in south Durham. Through this first JDIG, which remains active, Novartis has created 198 jobs and invested $55 million at the 170,000-square-foot site off East Cornwallis Road.
Then in February 2019, North Carolina gave Novartis a second incentive to hire another 200 workers and invest an additional $60 million at the Durham location. The company said this facility began this year with 308 employees and had met the benchmarks set by both state grants. However, in April 2025, Novartis asked North Carolina to terminate its second JDIG, saying it did not expect to meet the hiring requirements of the second grant.
Novartis must first repay the state $61,500 it had received through this canceled agreement in order to be eligible for tax benefits through its new, third incentive grant, the state said.
Novartis’ Durham facility produces Zolgensma, a gene therapy treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, an inherited fatal disorder often referred to as SMA. The company said Wednesday its next Triangle expansion will focus on “a broader portfolio of pharmaceutical products.”
As of Wednesday, Novartis was the 58th largest public company in the world, with a market value above $240 billion.
The FDA defines gene therapy as “a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease.” In recent decades, the Triangle has developed into a hub for gene therapy treatments, through research at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gene Therapy Center as well as in the local presence of companies like AskBio, Tune Therapeutics and Biogen.
This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 2:30 PM.
