Swiss pharmaceutical and drugmaker Novartis has opened a 10,000-square-foot cancer therapeutic manufacturing facility in Carlsbad, as part of a larger plan to build a $1.1 billion research hub in San Diego County and an even broader plan to invest nearly $50 billion in its U.S. operations in coming years.

The new manufacturing facility, announced in April, works on radioligand therapy, or RLT, a type of precision medicine that treats cancer not through chemicals, as chemotherapy does, but with a combination of radiation and ligands — connector molecules or ions — that deliver the therapy specifically to cancerous cells and the surrounding tumor environment.

Commercial manufacturing at the site is pending FDA approval.

The facility, described last spring as a $40-million investment th

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