Morrisville, North Carolina-based design-build construction management firm BE&K Building Group has won a contract to build 10 or more manufacturing buildings for drugmaker Novo Nordisk in Clayton, North Carolina, the company announced June 24.
The Bagsværd, Denmark-based pharmaceutical firm will invest $4.1 billion into the facility, according to a company fact sheet. The project will ramp up Novo Nordisk’s ability to produce injectable treatments for people with obesity and other serious chronic diseases. Novo Nordisk manufactures drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which are used for diabetes treatment and weight loss and have seen skyrocketing demand over the past year.
BE&K has already dedicated two years of planning for the project, such as providing estimates, schedules and procurement strategies, and now construction has officially begun.
The project will create over 1.4 million square feet across the many buildings on the 56-acre property, per the release. BE&K will perform a significant portion of work as the construction manager, and will serve as the agency construction manager for the remainder of the work.
The facility is being built across the street from an existing Novo Nordisk site, but the new one will be about four times the size of the original. Novo Nordisk has three current manufacturing facilities in North Carolina, and the new Clayton spot will double the square footage of those facilities combined, according to the company fact sheet.
Construction will conclude in phases from 2027 to 2029, according to the release, and the project will seek LEED-Gold certification for the various buildings.
