Eli Lilly Chairman and CEO Dave Ricks speaks during a news conference in Houston, Sept. 23, 2025.
Antranik Tavitian | Reuters
Eli Lilly On Friday it said it will spend more than $3.5 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley that will help make its next-generation anti-obesity drugs.
This includes a closely watched experimental drug called retatrutide, which has shown the largest weight loss seen to date for any treatment in a late-stage trial.
It is the fourth facility in a series of new investments planned in the United States by the pharmaceutical giant. Lilly announced in February 2025 that it would spend at least $27 billion to build new domestic manufacturing facilities, adding to $23 billion in previous investments since 2020.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump said that Lilly CEO Dave Ricks had told him that the drugmaker intends to build six plants in the United States, but Lilly has not confirmed those plans.
The company said Friday that it expects construction on the Pennsylvania plant to begin this year and the site to be operational in 2031.
That additional production capacity for upcoming weight loss treatments is crucial. Retatrutide is seen as a key pillar of Lilly's long-term anti-obesity strategy following its popular Zepbound injection and upcoming anti-obesity pill.
Some health experts say retatrutide, which works by targeting three gut hormones instead of one or two, may reach severely obese patients who would benefit from even greater weight loss than existing injections can offer. Lilly plans to release data from seven more Phase 3 trials on the drug this year.
The company and its main rival, Nordiskhave invested heavily in increasing production capacity after previously facing supply shortages for their existing weekly shots in the US.
Preparing a sufficient supply of upcoming drugs is also critical to Lilly's efforts to maintain its dominance in the burgeoning GLP-1 market. The company gained majority share in the sector last year for the first time, overtaking Novo.
But the Danish drugmaker hopes to close the gap with the launch this month of the first GLP-1 obesity pill, which has already racked up thousands of prescriptions in the United States. Lilly has its own pill, orforglipron, which could gain approval and launch later this year.
Drugmakers have been scrambling to increase production in the United States after President Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the United States. But concerns about those potential tariffs have eased following voluntary drug pricing agreements with Trump in recent months that exempt companies, including Lilly and Novo, from the taxes for three years.
Eli Lilly said the Pennsylvania site will bring 850 jobs to the area, including engineers, scientists, operations staff and laboratory technicians, as well as 2,000 construction jobs.
