In his blood: a childhood love of science helped spark a rapid career rise for senior Biogen executive.

• Author: Burritt, Chris
• Position: PROFILE

In a contest of most stressful jobs, Joydeep Ganguly's would rank pretty high. He runs the biggest plant for the third largest U.S. biotech company, and any significant hiccup could limit the supply of drugs relied upon by people with multiple sclerosis, hemophilia and other wrenching medical problems. Biogen Inc. promoted Ganguly to general manager of its Research Triangle Park operations earlier this year. Biogen, which changed its name from Biogen Idee in March, has smaller plants in its headquarters city, Cambridge, Mass., and in Denmark. But the workhorse is its North Carolina facilities, which employ 1,300, make five different drugs and are part of an investment of more than $1 billion. The company plans to hire about 100 more workers this year.

A nine-year employee at Biogen, Ganguly, 38, stays on the move as he juggles maintaining the plant's production while overseeing the public-affairs effort of the state's biggest biotech employer. The Fitbit on his wrist shows he walks an average of 12,000 steps a day. "My role as manufacturing GM right now is to make sure we can assure the supply of these drugs for our patients anytime, anywhere--which means you have to focus on flexibility. You've got to focus on getting the best out of everyone who works here," he says. "You've got to inspire people to levels of performance that are commensurate with what they're expecting of a world-class biotech facility."

Biogen's market value has soared over the past decade, to more than $95 billion, bolstered by a string of successful drugs approved by federal regulators after lengthy clinical trials. In the U.S., only Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead Sciences Inc. and Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen Inc. are valued higher by the stock market, while Summit, N.J.-based Celgene Corp. trails by several billion dollars. The approvals were great news for the company but put stress on Biogen's ability to produce so much, so fast. New biotech facilities take at least four years to build and often entail investments of as much as $1 billion.

Biogen opened its RTP site with a 40,000-square-foot lab and 60,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in 1995. Its first product, Avonex, became the world's top-selling drug used to treat multiple sclerosis. The company added a manufacturing plant in 2002, and its North Carolina campus now also includes a patient-services division. But rather than adding another plant, starting in 2009, Biogen formed alliances with other...