With a new investment commitment of $5.3 billion, Eli Lilly plans to more than double its investment in the Lebanon production site in the US state of Indiana. This expansion is intended to significantly increase production capacity for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for two drugs currently in high demand for the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. At a total of nine billion dollars, this is the largest investment in API production for synthetic drugs in the company's history.
The background to this is the worldwide run on the so-called weight loss injection, which the US pharmaceutical company is currently barely able to fulfil. The strong response to these drugs - the only approved therapies that activate two receptors of the incretin hormone - underlines the urgent unmet need in both type 2 diabetes and obesity. Since 2020, Eli Lilly has invested more than $16 billion in building new manufacturing facilities in the US and Europe, including in Alzey, Germany. In addition, a further $1.2 billion has been invested in modernising existing manufacturing facilities in Indianapolis and recently acquired an injectable drug manufacturing facility in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin from Nexus Pharmaceuticals. In total, these investments in production amount to more than $ 18 billion.
"Today's announcement tops the largest manufacturing investment in our company's history and, we believe, represents the single largest investment in synthetic medicine API manufacturing in U.S. history," said David A. Ricks, Lilly's chair and CEO. "This multi-site campus will make our latest medicines (..) support pipeline growth and leverage the latest technology and automation for maximum efficiency, safety and quality control. Importantly, we are investing in our home state of Indiana, creating high-wage, advanced manufacturing, engineering and science jobs for hundreds of current and future Hoosier families."
As part of this additional investment in the Lebanon site, Eli Lilly expects to create 200 full-time jobs for highly skilled workers such as engineers, scientists, operations personnel and laboratory technicians. In addition, over 5,000 construction jobs will be created during the development of the site.
Since breaking ground on the Lebanon manufacturing site in 2023, Lilly has turned much of the nearly 600-acre site into an active construction site. The company expects to begin manufacturing pharmaceuticals in Lebanon in late 2026 and ramp up by 2028.
