Eli Lilly plans $6.5 billion Texas manufacturing plant for weight problems capsule

Eli Lilly on Tuesday stated it’s going to spend $6.5 billion to construct a producing facility in Houston, Texas, to spice up manufacturing of the corporate’s pipeline of so-called small molecule medication, together with its intently watched experimental weight problems capsule. 

It’s the second in a string of latest deliberate U.S. investments by the drugmaker. Eli Lilly introduced in February that it could spend at the very least $27 billion to construct 4 new home manufacturing crops, including to $23 billion in earlier investments since 2020. 

Eli Lilly stated it’s going to announce the 2 remaining U.S. websites this yr. The corporate expects to start making medicines in any respect 4 services inside 5 years. 

That added manufacturing capability for Eli Lilly’s weight problems capsule, orforglipron, is essential as the corporate races to carry it to market and tries to keep up its dominance within the booming marketplace for GLP-1s. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have beforehand confronted provide constraints with their current weekly injections, as demand skyrocketed within the U.S. 

“Our new Houston website will improve Lilly’s capacity to fabricate orforglipron at scale and, if permitted, assist fulfill the medication’s potential as an weight problems and sort 2 diabetes therapy for tens of thousands and thousands of individuals worldwide preferring the convenience of a capsule that may be taken with out meals and water restrictions,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks stated within the launch. 

Drugmakers have been scrambling to spice up their manufacturing within the U.S. as President Donald Trump threatens to impose tariffs on prescribed drugs imported into the U.S. Trump has stated these levies will encourage corporations to re-shore manufacturing after home drug manufacturing shrank dramatically over the previous decade.

In a launch Tuesday, Eli Lilly stated the brand new Houston plant will concentrate on manufacturing orforglipron and the corporate’s pipeline of different small molecule medicines throughout completely different illness areas, together with cardiometabolic well being, oncology, immunology and neuroscience. Small molecule medication, which frequently are available in capsule kind, are extra handy for sufferers to take than injectable medicines and are usually simpler and cheaper to fabricate at scale.  

Eli Lilly stated the positioning will carry 615 jobs to the Better Houston space, together with extremely expert engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, and 4,000 development jobs.