Swiss drugmaker Novartis breaks ground on Denton facility

The Novartis plant will make next-generation cancer treatments.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis broke ground on its new 46,000 sq. ft radioligand therapy (RLT) manufacturing site in Denton, Texas, on Thursday.

The Denton site is part of a network of manufacturing plants that Novartis is building across the U.S. to make cancer drugs that must be shipped to patients quickly.

Once fully operational in 2028, the facility will make radioligand therapies for patients in the southern U.S.

Novartis currently produces two radioligand therapy treatments called Lutathera, which treats neuroendocrine tumors, a rare form of cancer in the digestive tract, and Pluvicto, for patients with a specific type of prostate cancer. They were both approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

It’s an effective form of treatment that many experts are excited about, but the medication expires within days after it’s manufactured.

"We've, for a long time, been looking for new cancer therapies that on the one hand can be highly impactful in eliminating the cancer cells while preserving as much as possible all the healthy tissue, all the healthy cells," said Novartis US president Victor  Bultó. "This is a new modality that has been actually developed in the recent years that is getting closer to that precision. So in a way, it's like having a group of Navy SEALs that would come very precisely to kill the bad guys and get out of there as fast as possible," he continued.

Because radioisotopes decay from the moment they are produced, companies need to ship RLTs quickly to patients to ensure the effectiveness of the therapies.

The ticking clock has shaped the network of RLT production facilities that Novartis is building in the U.S.

In April 2025, Novartis committed $23 billion over five years to grow its U.S. research and manufacturing footprint.

Seven new and three expanded facilities across the country are already under construction.

U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler, Swiss Ambassador to the US Ralf Heckner, Texas State Senator Brent Hagenbuch, Texas State Representative Andy Hopper, and Denton Mayor Gerard Hudspeth joined Novartis leadership, employees, and community partners for the groundbreaking ceremony.

Also in attendance were doctors with Texas Oncology, which offers the radiopharmaceutical treatment option for patients with advanced prostate cancer and/or neuroendocrine tumors at several of its facilities.

"It's been unbelievable results. What we're seeing is these patients have advanced metastatic prostate cancer, they have failed other therapies and they're looking for another opportunity and so we're able to insert this radiopharmaceutical into their regimen, which has a very limited impact on their quality of life and we're seen good outcomes. It's really a win-win," said radiology oncologist Dr. Michael Herman, of Texas Oncology.