Senior Vice President & General Manager, Life Sciences, North America
Delivering one of North America’s largest biomanufacturing facilities for next-generation therapies
Delivering the largest end-to-end cell culture facility in North America
Jacobs is providing Engineering Procurement Construction Management services for FUJIFILM Biotechnologies’ $3.2 billion Holly Springs campus – the largest end-to-end cell culture contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) site in North America. Designed to strengthen supply chain resilience and bring therapies closer to patients, the facility integrates drug substance manufacturing, automated fill-finish and large-scale packaging. With nearly 13 million hours worked, the project sets a new standard for safe, scalable delivery, and was recognized with an honorable mention at the ISPE 2026 Facility of the Year Awards.
CDMOs driving biopharma growth
With global biopharma spending projected to hit $2 trillion by 2028, companies are turning to CDMOs to expand capacity and accelerate access to life-changing therapies. The Holly Springs facility demonstrates how FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, supported by Jacobs’ EPCM delivery model, is meeting this demand through modular design, regulatory expertise and rapid scale-up capabilities.
Accelerating delivery through digital innovation
Jacobs is using digital delivery and modular replication to reduce timelines, costs and complexity. The Holly Springs campus was intentionally designed as a model facility to support replication in Hillerød, Denmark. Jacobs’ team designed concurrent compliance with both U.S. and Danish building codes. This “design one, build many” approach, supported by data-driven execution and 4D schedule modeling, has enabled seamless transfer of designs across geographies while maximizing prefabrication components. This approach has already reduced indirect costs and delivered an estimated 70% efficiency gain between project phases – potentially establishing a replicable model for global biomanufacturing.
200
tons of dynamite used to level the project site
~13M
hours the team has surpassed with a TRIR rate of 0.06, 25x better than industry average
10M
pounds of equipment received for phase one
8
x 20,000 cell culture bioreactors in phase one; each bioreactor is three-stories tall
Expanding capacity to meet global demand
Building on the success of phase one, Jacobs was selected to design and build the $1.2 billion expansion of the Holly Springs campus, announced in 2024. This second phase will add approximately 400,000 square feet of manufacturing space and eight additional 20,000-liter bioreactors, doubling the site’s large-scale production capacity. By leveraging the same digital replication strategies and integrated delivery model established in phase one, Jacobs and FUJIFILM Biotechnologies are ensuring consistency, efficiency and speed-to-market as the facility scales to meet global demand for advanced biologics.
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![Fujifilm]()
Credit: FUJIFILM Biotechnologies -
![Fujifilm]()
Credit: FUJIFILM Biotechnologies -
![Fujifilm]()
Credit: FUJIFILM Biotechnologies
Collaboration as a catalyst
Built on trust and transparency, the program applies a “best athlete” team approach, uniting expertise across disciplines to deliver at scale. This collaborative model enables innovation, agility and consistent problem-solving, ensuring momentum and performance across the project lifecycle.
