COLUMBIA, SC — Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp. is on track to begin mass hiring this fall as it plans to open its $313 million plant in Lexington County within a year, its president and CEO told a Columbia leadership group on Tuesday.

Construction of the 1.2 million-square-foot plant outside Cayce at the I-26 and I-77 exchange is continuing in earnest, Lou Kennedy told a packed room of the Leadership Columbia Alumni Association during a luncheon at The Palmetto Club.

Headquartered in Orlando, Fla., Nephron, a generic respiratory medication manufacturer, is expanding into the Palmetto State. Kennedy, a Lexington native, said the plant will surpass its projected 700-person workforce more quickly than previously announced -- in less than 10 years -- and also already has increased its product line planned for the plant.