Octapharma looked at options across the country and chose Rock Hill, where it will not only relocate its U.S. headquarters, but also build its first U.S. manufacturing facility. South Carolina is where a company that’s been making plasma-based medicines since 1983, with facilities across Europe, wants to call home in the United States. That means $1.5 billion and more than 1,500 jobs for our state. Those are jobs on the plant floor, in the lab and in corporate offices. That’s the kind of investment that changes a region, not just a balance sheet.
This is the fourth or fifth time in as many years that a global manufacturer has run the numbers on South Carolina and landed on yes. SHL Medical put $220 million into its Charleston drug-delivery facility producing autoinjectors. The Ritedose Corporation is on pace to produce two billion doses a year out of Columbia. Charles River Laboratories keeps expanding its operations in Charleston County. Clemson, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina are preparing the researchers and technicians who make this industry run. Octapharma isn’t building in isolation — it’s plugging into a supply chain and a talent pipeline that’s already several years deep.
What I would tell anyone watching from outside the state is simple: this isn’t a lucky year. It’s a pattern. Companies keep coming, and the ones already here keep growing. Governor McMaster, Secretary Lightsey, York County and the City of Rock Hill put together the kind of partnership that makes a decision like this easy to say yes to, and we’re proud to have been part of that work.