Biogen Invests $2B in North Carolina as RTP Leaders Push for Deeper Venture Capital

Biogen, North Carolina’s largest biotechnology employer, marked its 30th anniversary of U.S. manufacturing in 2025 by announcing a $2 billion investment in multiple modalities and factories across the company’s two campuses in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. The investment builds on nearly $10 billion invested over the past three decades, including more than $3 billion in recent years, and reinforces the company’s commitment to patients. “With this investment, we will modernize and expand our manufacturing capability to enable our pipeline and provide resilient patient supply,” said the general manager of the RTP Biologics site.

Biogen’s eight manufacturing factories, located in Wake and Durham counties, produce high-quality medicines for the U.S. market and the rest of the world. The company broke ground on its RTP operations in 1995, when the life sciences sector was relatively new in North Carolina; the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the nation’s first state-sponsored biotechnology initiative, had been founded roughly a decade earlier. North Carolina’s biopharmaceutical sector is projected to create more than 8,000 new jobs by the end of 2026, and Biogen plans to help address the demand through hands-on training and early career exposure to biomanufacturing. The Biogen CoLab, a hands-on lab where students participate in science and life science classes taught by employees and nonprofit partners, is one example. In 2025, Biogen and the Biogen Foundation donated $250,000 to Durham Technical Community College’s new Life Sciences Center, funding a Biogen Lab Hall anchored by the BioWork Lab. The 35,000-square-foot facility will house 12 advanced laboratories, an aseptic manufacturing suite and collaborative learning spaces that support training for more than 400 students annually.

At a leadership breakfast at Kymanox Headquarters in Research Triangle, the CEO of Kymanox and a general partner at Cape Fear BioCapitol led a conversation with dozens of regional executives about the priorities for a region poised for a new phase of growth. The breakfast was the first of eight additional thought leadership programs planned across the region this year. Executives from companies including Kincell Bio, Seqirus, Solid Biosciences, iOrganBio, EnFuego Therapeutics and Clarus Biologics joined alongside ecosystem leaders from Duke University, NC Life Sciences, the Center for Entrepreneurial Development and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Their shared message was that North Carolina has earned credibility, but the next challenge is building depth and moving more competitively. “Be something exceptional. And people cannot deny you,” said the general partner, who added: “Today, our top 5% seem to compete with the median of the top-tier ecosystems.” Boston and the Bay Area benefit from density of venture firms, repeat founders and executives with deep capital networks, while RTP has thinner layers of that venture and executive density.

The CEO of Kymanox compared building an ecosystem to baking sourdough bread: “You need all the ingredients.” North Carolina has many of them — major manufacturers, expanding startups, universities and organizations like NC Life Sciences and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. But one ingredient remains comparatively thin: competitive venture capital. “If you’re an emerging enterprise and you’re seeking capital, you’re probably gonna get some check writers… and they’re gonna be not located anywhere here in North Carolina,” he said. The same morning, RTP-based Ten63 Therapeutics announced new financing from two new funders outside North Carolina, after raising earlier funding from Cape Fear BioCapital. The conversation also touched on a structural divide between research and manufacturing: RTP is a national powerhouse in biomanufacturing, but early-stage R&D, particularly in gene therapy and advanced molecular biology, remains more concentrated in Boston and San Francisco. One executive described posting high-level research roles in Boston and receiving an overwhelming response, while similar postings in RTP draw smaller candidate pools.