Everything is bigger in Texas. And so it is with Bristol Myers Squibb’s $2.3 billion investment in a manufacturing campus in Houston, which comes in at more than twice the price the company estimated in a government application earlier this year.
In May, the New Jersey pharma filed documents with the state of Texas to build a $1 billion, 600,000-square-foot complex, with an option to expand, in the Generation Park Management District in northeast Houston. It was one of several U.S. sites BMS was considering, the company said at the time.
On Monday, BMS made it official in a statement saying it intends to employ nearly 500 at the facility, which will be built to “grow in scale, capability and workforce for decades to come.” It will support drug product and finished manufacturing from late development through launch, the company added, with plans to finish construction in 2030.
The modular and “multi-modal” design will enable BMS to produce small molecules, biologics and antibody-drug conjugate medicines for a variety of disease areas at the site. The plant will be built with “configuration flexibility,” BMS said, to allow for the incorporation of future advancements in digital integration and automation.
The funding is part of a $40 billion, five-year investment plan BMS revealed in May of 2025 to bolster its R&D, technology and manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.
“As part of our $40 billion commitment to the United States, we're building the domestic manufacturing capabilities needed to deliver the next generation of medicines and support future scientific breakthroughs,” BMS CEO Chris Boerner said in a release. “Houston and the state of Texas offer the talent, infrastructure, and partnership needed to help bring that vision to life.”
Helping attract BMS to Houston was the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation (JETI) program, which provides incentives for large development projects in the state. The initiative also helped attract Eli Lilly to invest in a $6.5 billion active pharmaceutical ingredients plant, also in the Generation Park complex in Houston. Lilly unveiled that plan in September 2025.
In the BMS release, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott touted the state’s “lower operating costs and easy access to markets across the U.S. and the world.”
Bristol Myers Squibb's largest manufacturing facilities are in Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Switzerland and near its headquarters in Summit, New Jersey.