Swiss drugmaker Roche has seen explosive growth for drugs like its new breast cancer drug Kadcyla and says it needs a lot more capacity for it and the long list of other biologics in hand or under development. To get that capacity, it will invest 800 million Swiss francs ($881.8 milllion) to build a new facility in Switzerland and expand plants in the U.S. and Germany, adding nearly 500 jobs in the process.

Biologics are large molecue drugs manufactured from living cells rather than chemical synthesis, making them more complex to produce. Roche already is manufacturing a variety of approved biologics like Kadcyla, an expected superstar biologic that combines Roche's ($RHHBY) antibody drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) with drug-conjugate technology from ImmunoGen ($IMGN), but pointed out it has 39 biologics in its pipeline. It was Kadcyla and another new breast cancer biologic, Perjeta, as well as older biologic treatments like Rituxan that powered the company to a 10% hike in profits for the first half of the year. It reported the improved earnings while many other drugmakers were fessing up to disappointing sales.

"As the world's largest supplier of biologics, Roche is committed to making the necessary investments to ensure ongoing supply of these medicines at the highest quality standards" Daniel O'Day, chief operating officer of the pharmaceuticals division, said Monday.