Genentech broke ground Monday, Sept. 28, on a $750 million manufacturing expansion at its Hillsboro Technology Park campus. The project will nearly double the 75-acre site and bring 250 permanent jobs to the city by 2031.

Hundreds of people gathered for the ceremony, which KGW reported was attended by Hillsboro Mayor Beach Pace and Gov. Tina Kotek. The new facility will produce prefilled syringes, auto-injectors and other drug-delivery devices that the company said can cut the time some patients spend receiving treatments from hours to minutes.

Phil Adamson, vice president of Genentech's Hillsboro Technical Operations, said devices for U.S. patients are currently imported from overseas. The Hillsboro plant will change that.

"We'll be manufacturing millions of devices right here in Hillsboro," Adamson said at the groundbreaking.

The campus has operated since 2006 and already employs more than 800 people producing medicines in oncology, immunology and neurology. Genentech, a subsidiary of Swiss drugmaker Roche Group, first announced the expansion on Aug. 20, calling it part of a broader $50 billion commitment by Roche to grow pharmaceutical manufacturing and research in the United States.

The new facility will use automation, robotics and "digital twins" that Adamson said will let the company virtually map the factory floor and optimize production. It is also being designed to reduce water and energy use.

Gov. Kotek said the expansion was more than two years in the making, with the state working alongside Genentech on permitting and workforce needs. She tied the investment to a goal of doubling direct and indirect employment in Oregon's life sciences sector over the next decade, the Hillsboro News Times reported. Her office said the project will also support about 200 construction jobs during development.

Pace highlighted the story of Justin Escobar Rios, a Hillsboro High School graduate who developed an interest in biotechnology through the school's bioscience technology program, where Genentech employees serve as mentors. Escobar Rios went through Portland Community College's bioscience program before Genentech hired him at 19.

Commercial operations at the new facility are expected to begin in 2031.