Transforming Biomanufacturing: Jacobs Delivers North America’s Largest Cell Culture Site

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. 

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.