Eli Lilly is building a $4.5 billion factory to speed up drug production
Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY) is putting $4.5 billion toward building a new site to develop and manufacture drugs.
The Lilly Medicine Foundry, located in Lebanon, Indiana, is a first-of-its-kind facility where the drugmaker will be able to carry out research, development, and manufacturing under one roof, the company said Wednesday.
“As we accelerate our work to discover new medicines for the toughest diseases, we’re continuing to invest in state-of-the-art infrastructure to support our growing pipeline,” said Lilly’s chief executive officer David Ricks in a statement. “In addition to supplying high-quality medicine for our clinical studies, this new complex will further strengthen our process development and scale up our manufacturing capabilities to speed delivery of next-generation medicines to patients around the world.”
The facility, which is set to open in late 2027, brings Lilly’s total capital commitment in the U.S. to more than $23 billion since 2020. This site will have a focus on the development of molecular therapies, including drug substances for small molecules, biologics, and nucleic acid therapies, the company said.
In May, the company announced a $5.3 billion commitment to another one of its sites in Lebanon, where it produces tirzepatide, the active ingredient in its diabetes and weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. That was the largest investment in the company’s history and brought its capital allocation to that plant to $9 billion.
Dan Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific officer, told CNBC that the Medicine Foundry is part of efforts to find the company’s next major opportunity — and stay ahead of the curve.
“In our industry, people usually like to see what’s popular and then follow the leader,” Skovronsky said. “So a lot of the other companies are now stopping their different research projects so they can try and figure out how to catch up to us in obesity and Alzheimer’s disease. OK, we’re working on the next thing. Sorry.”
Lilly said technologies developed at the Medicine Foundry will then be transferred to Lilly’s other manufacturing sites for full-scale production, with the new site collaborating closely with the Lilly Research Laboratories in Indianapolis and the company’s other manufacturing sites in Lebanon.
