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Biotech leaders and politicians descended on Hillsboro this week to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new $750 million factory expansion by biotech company Genentech. Cameras clicked as officials smiled and symbolically shoveled dirt into the air, touting the news as a good portent for a state whose economy has been lagging behind the rest of the nation for years.
Genentech is not new to the area; it has had a manufacturing presence in Hillsboro for two decades, with a complex that now sprawls across several buildings. It projects the new factory will open in 2031. Officials say it will manufacture a broad range of medicines across oncology, neurology and immunology.
Specific terms of the state’s deal with Genentech remain unclear. Gov. Tina Kotek’s office has said the agreement includes “a forgivable loan from the Governor’s Strategic Reserve Fund” to help offset some of the initial capital investment costs for the project, but a spokesperson declined to offer specifics, saying final contract negotiations remain ongoing. (For context, Oregon’s current two-year budget allotted the Strategic Reserve Fund about $15 million, some of which has already been allocated.)
Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, who flew in for the Monday groundbreaking, tells WW the biggest factors for the company when siting a factory are: (1) Does the area have a skilled workforce? (2) Can we work with good state and local leaders on issues like permitting and logistics? And (3) will the community embrace them?
Asked how Oregon could improve its performance, Magargee said the state had “nailed it.”
In key measures like job growth, Oregon continues to rank poorly, state economists have found.
The health services sector continues to be the state’s primary driver of job creation—mirroring national trends that in part simply reflect that the population is aging.
But other sectors have not seen this kind of growth at all. For example: Though the semiconductor industry has boomed nationwide amid a massive buildout in artificial intelligence infrastructure, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment in Oregon’s semiconductor and electronic product manufacturing industry fell 28% between January 2023 and June 2026.
Kotek, who is deep in a tough reelection campaign, was among the officials who projected a jubilant spirit this week.
She noted the huge recent pledges from Phil and Penny Knight to the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute and, more recently, to the University of Oregon to establish a college of engineering. “We are on a roll, people,” she told Genentech employees and other attendees in remarks before the groundbreaking.
Kotek’s office describes Oregon as a leader in the life sciences sector, noting the presence of other firms like Thermo Fisher and Lonza. In an interview with WW as the Genentech event was wrapping, Kotek framed the deal as part of a longer-term project to further build out the life sciences workforce and industry in Oregon, saying a focus of the next two years would be to partner with high schools and higher ed to build out the talent pipeline.
“This,” she said, “is the next stage of manufacturing for our state.”
