GETTING THAT MINDSET: Unusual public-private cooperation has sparked billions of dollars of pharma investment in Johnston County.

• Author: Barkin, Dan

On the east side of Clayton, in Johnston County, are two large biotechnology manufacturing plants, one operated by Denmark-based Novo Nordisk and the other by Grifols, headquartered in Spain. Near these two plants is the two-story building Workforce Development Center, run by Johnston Community College.

The companies have expanded gready here in the past decade, and one reason is the workforce center. "In economic development, there's about four things you gotta have," says Tony Copeland, a former North Carolina commerce secretary. "No. 1 is employees."

Everyone talks about the workforce. We don't have enough workers. We don't have enough workers with the right skills. Well, I think they have hit on something in Clayton with the workforce center.

There are about 3,400 workers at Novo and Grifols in Clayton. The annual payroll for pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing in Johnston County is around $268 million, about 11 % of the state s total, and No. 2 behind Durham County, which has Research Triangle Park. Three decades ago, Johnston Co. industry was mainly textiles and tobacco. Now it is one of the state's leading life sciences manufacturing hubs. Johnson County alongwith the Eastern North Carolina counties of Edgecombe, Nash, Pitt and Wilson--that form the BioPharma Crescent.

When Novo Nordisk announced a major expansion in 2015, it said the jobs would pay more than $68,400, on average. The Johnston Co. average was $34,400.

HOW THEY COT HERE

Novo Nordisk makes diabetes and obesity products here and came to Clayton in 1991. It acquired a plant that was abandoned by another company. "When we bought it, it was just a shell with a dirt floor," says Chad Henry, general manager of product supply, quality and IT for Novo in the U.S.

Novo dominated the European insulin market. It was building a 100-employee plant in Clayton to challenge Eli Lilly in the U.S. The plant would get ingredients shipped from Denmark, process them, and then fill vials and cartridges. Drug plants are highly regulated and starting a new one is a long process. It took until 1996 to get the FDA approvals.

Across the railroad tracks from Novo's building was a small plant that would eventually grow into the Grifols complex. In the early 1970s, it was built by Cutter Laboratories, a California company that extracted substances from donated blood plasma that could be turned into medicine. Cutter was attracted by a labor force of folks struggling to make a living on small farms who wanted to stay in rural Johnston, not yet a booming...