Grifols to invest $210M in two new Clayton plants
Grifols announced Wednesday that it plans to invest $210 million building two new plants in Clayton.
The Spanish biotherapeutics company, which is the largest private employer in Johnston County, expects to begin construction on a new plasma fractionation plant in the first quarter of 2017. The plant will be used to extract proteins with therapeutic uses. The facility is scheduled to start production in 2022.
The second facility will be a purification plant for intravenous immunoglobin. It is scheduled to begin operating in late 2021.
A Grifols spokeswoman said the company does not yet have an estimate on how many new jobs will be created as a result of the two projects.
Grifols employs about 1,600 employees in Clayton. The company has about 500 employees at its corporate offices in Research Triangle Park and operates plasma donor centers around the state.
Grifols has already invested more than $370 million in its Clayton plasma plant since 2010. The company is also constructing a plasma warehousing center in Clayton to handle the increased supply of plasma that its new fractionation plant will require.
The warehouse, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year, will have the capacity to store 3.7 million liters of plasma.
Grifols is also opening 75 new plasma centers in the U.S. to increase its supply. The company, which currently operates 160 centers, aims to have 225 open by 2021.
The Barcelona-based company established a presence in the Triangle when it acquired Talecris for $3.4 billion in 2010. The company’s products made from blood plasma are administered to people with illnesses such as hemophilia and Alzheimer’s.
Grifols also announced Wednesday that it would build two other new plants, one in Dublin, and another in Parets del Vallès, Spain. The four plants combined represent an investment of $360 million.
David Bracken: 919-829-4548, @brackendavid
This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 11:07 AM with the headline "Grifols to invest $210M in two new Clayton plants."