Eli Lilly’s R&D has yielded innovations such as the metabolic disorder drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, both discovered in the company’s labs. Lilly is now committing $4.5 billion for in-house innovations in the manufacturing of medicines.
The pharmaceutical giant on Tuesday announced plans for a new facility, Lilly Medicine Foundry, which it says will research new ways of producing medicines. The site will also enable the company to scale up the manufacturing of experimental drugs for clinical trials. The Medicine Foundry will be constructed in the LEAP Innovation District in Lebanon, Indiana, which is northwest of Indianapolis where Lilly is headquartered. The company expects this new manufacturing site will open in 2027.
Manufacturing has become a major area of investment for Lilly as demand continues to soar for its new metabolic disorder drugs. The company reported $20 billion in revenue for the first half of this year, a 31% increase compared to the same period in 2023. Lilly attributed much of that revenue growth to rising sales of diabetes drug Mounjaro and obesity drug Zepbound. Both are peptides that are expensive to produce. Lilly has been pouring billions of dollars into the expansion of existing facilities and the construction of new sites for manufacturing both medicines in Europe and the U.S.
The Medicine Foundry’s research will not be limited to peptide drugs. Lilly says this facility will have a flexible design that enables production of various types of medicines, including small molecules, biologics, and nucleic acid therapies. The site will support manufacturing of experimental medicines for clinical trials, Lilly said. Furthermore, new technologies developed at the Medicine Foundry will be transferred to the company’s other sites when drugs are ready for full-scale production.
Locating the Medicine Foundry at LEAP brings another Lilly facility to the district, a 9,000 acre innovation hub about 30 miles northwest of Indianapolis that is becoming a home to corporate campuses, advanced manufacturing, and R&D operations across a range of industries. Lilly has about 600 acres at LEAP. Last year, the pharma giant broke ground for a manufacturing facility that will make the ingredients for drugs, such as its genetic medicines. This past May, the company announced a $5.3 billion expansion of its plans at the LEAP site, adding the capacity to make the main pharmaceutical ingredient in both Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Lilly said Indiana is providing infrastructure improvements for roads, water, and utilities. The state is also offering the company economic incentives tied to investment and employment goals at the Medicine Foundry, which is expected to bring 400 full-time jobs to Lebanon.
“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,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a prepared 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.”
Illustration: Eli Lilly
