Bayer plans $2.2bn New Albany pharma campus with 2031 manufacturing start

Two phases in New Albany

Bayer plans to invest $2.2 billion to build the campus on about 200 acres inside the 12,000-acre New Albany International Business Park, which holds roughly 43 million square feet of commercial space, according to CRE Daily. It would be Bayer's first manufacturing site of its kind in North America. The site is south of Route 161 near Beach Road along Ganton Parkway, close to plants run by American Regent, Amgen and Pharmavite. Groundbreaking is set for mid-2027. Bayer expects drug substance manufacturing to start in 2031 and drug product manufacturing in 2034, with the plant fully operational that year. The first phase makes drug substance, the chemical building blocks of Bayer medicines; the second makes finished products for oncology, cardiovascular disease and renal care.

Together the phases should create about 600 permanent jobs and roughly 1,500 construction positions, the company said. DeWine said the jobs will average 'well over $100,000.' DeWine said unspecified job creation tax credits, Ohio Department of Development grants and JobsOhio assistance would follow once final agreements are executed. Bayer is pursuing a Job Creation Tax Credit and JobsOhio support, which the governor's office said would be made public after a final agreement is signed.

Why Ohio

DeWine called the project 'Ohio's largest international healthcare project' and Germany's largest direct investment in Ohio history. Sebastian Guth, Bayer's global chief operating officer, told The Dispatch that Ohio won out over several other states because of its proximity to seven research universities, its hospital systems and an educated workforce. He described the plant as 'modular, flexible' and said a company goal was 'bringing manufacturing closer to the patients we serve.'

Tariffs and U.S. investment

The project comes as President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on some patented imported medicines and plans levies on generic drug imports from 2028, the Economic Times reported. The measures are intended to bring more pharmaceutical production to the United States, the report said. The project joins a wave of U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing investment driven by supply-chain concerns, tariffs and national security, CRE Daily reported. Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said the United States has long been 'a key manufacturing base and innovation hub' for the company. The Ohio project follows more than $7 billion in Bayer pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing investment in the U.S. over the past five years, the company said. At $2.2 billion, the New Albany plant alone equals about a third of that five-year total. The money is a declared multi-year commitment, not completed spending: no production is due before 2031.

Workforce

Eddie Pauline, president and CEO of the Ohio Life Sciences Association, said several other pharma companies had wanted to move to or expand in Ohio but backed out previously. 'The feedback from the deals that we lost was "Where is your training center?"' he said. The state is building the Ohio Life Science Training Center, a $30 million building due to open in 2027 that will train biomanufacturing operators and technicians. JobsOhio, the city of New Albany and The New Albany Company are investing over $30 million in it. DeWine said the center 'is one of the great assets that Ohio has today' and would likely encourage other biotech firms to follow Bayer.

Bayer's U.S. footprint

Bayer also runs a 46-acre biotech campus in Berkeley, California, which employs about 1,000 people, and completed a $44 million expansion of its Myerstown, Pennsylvania, facility in 2025, according to CRE Daily. The company has a pharmaceuticals headquarters in Whippany, N.J., and other sites in Pittsburgh, Cambridge, Massachusetts, North Carolina and San Diego, according to a press release from DeWine's office.