Input Stories

Biopharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co. broke ground Tuesday on a $1 billion, 470,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Delaware—and said it plans to invest billions more in the next few years to expand domestic manufacturing and research capabilities (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).  

What’s going on: The now under-construction “center of excellence” in Wilmington—to be called Merck Wilmington Biotech—will have manufacturing, laboratory and warehouse capabilities. It will make products “includ[ing] biologic drugs and a new, easier-to-use version of Keytruda, the company’s blockbuster cancer drug. The plant marks Merck’s first in-house manufacturing site in the U.S. to make Keytruda, and will ensure American patients get the drug made domestically.”

• Merck, which recently estimated that tariffs implemented thus far by the U.S. administration will cost it $200 million, manufactures Keytruda both overseas and domestically. The drug, approved for treatment of melanoma, lung cancer and other tumors, “is the world’s top-selling pharmaceutical.”
• The NAM-attended groundbreaking follows the March completion of another $1 billion Merck facility, a 225,000-square-foot site in Durham, North Carolina, that will focus on expanding vaccine production capacity.
• It also follows investment announcements by other large manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson, which said in March it would invest more than $55 billion in the U.S. in the next four years, and Lilly, which said in February it would build four new manufacturing sites across the U.S.  

Why they did it: “It is really a strategy to make sure we can source the U.S. needs from U.S. sites,” Merck Chairman and CEO Rob Davis told the Journal. “As you look at what the current administration is doing and what President Trump is trying to achieve, this is very much aligned with that.”

• Merck noted in a press release that since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the company has invested $12 billion to build out its U.S. manufacturing and research capabilities, and it will invest an addition $9 billion in the next four years.
• In a social post Tuesday, the White House amplified the announcement, quoting a Merck fact sheet that cited the TCJA as the reason the drug maker was able to invest such a large amount in its American presence.  

What it will mean: Merck Wilmington Biotech, which is slated to begin manufacturing drugs by 2030, will create at least 500 full-time jobs and about 4,000 construction jobs.

• The laboratory part of the site is expected to be fully operational by 2028.  

The final say: “This $1 billion commitment—supported by the pro-growth policies of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—not only brings cutting-edge innovation closer to the patients who depend on it, but also fuels economic growth, job creation and technological leadership here at home,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons.

• “Manufacturers like Merck are proving once again that when we invest in American ingenuity, we invest in local communities and a stronger, healthier and more prosperous future for all.”