Novo Nordisk employees in Johnston County signed their names early Friday to the beam that will top off an expansion for the pharmaceutical company and will add about 700 jobs to their ranks.

The $2 billion project, announced in 2015, is the company’s first outside its home country of Denmark, and it represents the largest single manufacturing investment in North Carolina state history.

The topping off process is a ceremonial recognition that the foundation and steel structure of the building are complete and a traditional Scandinavian way of “calming the spirits” that surround a project.

So far, Novo Nordisk has put in 1 million work hours on the project without an injury.

When completed in 2020, the facility will be the size of about seven football fields.

The hundreds of new employees will almost double Novo Nordisk’s Clayton work force, and they will make drugs to treat and maintain diabetes. The average salary for the new jobs is estimated at $68,000 per year.