Dive Brief:
- Eli Lilly & Co. will invest an additional $4.5 billion across two of its three Lebanon, Indiana, manufacturing sites to meet growing demand for its genetic therapies and weight-loss medications, the pharmaceutical giant said Wednesday.
- Lilly plans to bring new process designs and technologies to its active pharmaceutical ingredient factory set to open next year, including the ability to produce its first FDA-approved, once-daily pill for weight loss, Foundayo, according to a news release.
- The Indianapolis-based company also plans to expand its advanced therapies facility, which opened this week. Lilly said the additional investment brings its total capital expansion commitments in Indiana to more than $21 billion over the past six years.
Dive Insight:
Lilly has been at the forefront of the reshoring wave in the United States, spending billions of dollars over the past year on its domestic manufacturing footprint to meet burgeoning weight-loss drug demand.
Since September, the company has committed more than $16 billion to the construction of three facilities that will make injectable or oral weight-loss treatments in Houston; Huntsville, Alabama; and Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The sites are set to be operational by 2031 at the latest.
Lilly said it moved forward with the additional Lebanon investment due to its “evolving pipeline” and “anticipated demand for its medicines.”
Once completed, Lilly Lebanon API will make the injectable medications Zepbound and Mounjaro for weight management and type-2 diabetes, respectively, according to a news release. It will also produce Foundayo and retatrutide, a triple hormone receptor agonist in late-stage development that targets obesity and cardiometabolic disease.
“It will be the largest API production site in U.S. history,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a statement.
Beyond API, the newly opened Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies facility will support clinical and commercial production of therapies that “target disease at the genetic level,” the company said. The Lilly Medicine Foundry, a manufacturing, research and development center focused on scaling medicine production, is set to open next year.
All three facilities will be located at Indiana’s LEAP Innovation and Research District, a 9,000-plus acre economic development project with major tenants such as Cummins, Elanco, Corteva and Roche.
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation did not immediately respond to a request for the types of incentives Lilly qualifies for with its Lebanon manufacturing projects.
