Roche envisions its Indianapolis site as a “major hub” for the manufacturing of its continuous glucose monitoring systems. The news comes on the heels of an announced $700 million investment in North Carolina.
Roche pledged a $550 million boost to its site in Indianapolis—where Roche has its diagnostics division and where fellow Big Pharma Eli Lilly is headquartered—as the Swiss company continues to beef up its U.S. footprint.
The money, which Roche expects to finish disbursing by 2030, will help the company expand its diagnostics and manufacturing campus in Indianapolis, building it out to be a “major hub” for producing continuous glucose monitoring systems. Roche said the commitment will not only help improve patient access to diabetes management tools but will also create “hundreds” of jobs in the region, though the pharma did not specify exactly how many new roles it expects to open.
In its press announcement on Tuesday, Roche also noted that the Indianapolis investment aligns “with national efforts to strengthen local manufacturing.”
President Donald Trump has been trying to bring pharmaceutical manufacturing home since the start of the year, largely by threatening the pharma industry with tariffs should they fail to reshore their production operations. Roche has played along, last month announcing a $50 billion package that it says will create some 12,000 jobs in the U.S.
Aside from Tuesday’s Indianapolis site, Roche’s hefty investment will also help construct several other new facilities, including a gene therapy campus in Pennsylvania and an R&D center in Massachusetts. The pharma likewise announced Monday that it will add $700 million to its North Carolina footprint to build a drug manufacturing facility for its next-generation obesity therapies. This plant alone, according to Roche, will create 400 “high wage” jobs.
These back-to-back commitments come even as Roche’s multibillion-dollar U.S. package hangs in the balance. Speaking to various media outlets on Monday, a company spokesperson said the “current policy environment” could push the pharma to rethink its investment. Without naming specific government initiatives, the spokesperson added that Roche might reassess its moves “if legislation or regulations were implemented that would harm our industry’s ability to operate and innovate in America.”
It’s been an active week for Roche.
Also on Tuesday, the company revealed long-term data for its breast cancer drug Perjeta. Over 10 years of follow-up, a post-surgical treatment regimen of Perjeta, Herceptin and chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by 17% as compared with patients taking just Herceptin and chemotherapy.
This overall survival effect was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.044, according to Roche.
The Perjeta combo also elicited a 21% overall survival advantage in a subgroup of patients whose cancers have infiltrated the lymph nodes. These findings, according to chief medical officer Levi Garraway, “validate the sustained benefits” of a Perjeta-based treatment regimen in breast cancer.
