Eli Lilly CEO David A. Ricks speaks at a news conference at Generation Park in Houston, Monday, Sept. 23, 2025. The company announced plans for a $6.5 billion biomanufacturing plant in north Houston. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Raquel Natalicchio | Houston Chronicle | fake images
Eli Lilly On Tuesday it said it will spend $6 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Alabama, to help boost production of its widely watched experimental obesity pill and other drugs.
It is the third facility in a series of new investments planned in the United States by the drugmaker. Eli Lilly announced in February that it would spend at least $27 billion to build four new domestic manufacturing plants, adding to $23 billion in previous investments since 2020.
The company said it expects construction of the Alabama plant to begin in 2026 and be completed in 2032.
“Today's investment continues the consolidation of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production, strengthening supply chain resilience and reliable access to medicines for patients in the U.S.,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a statement.
That extra production capacity for Eli Lilly's obesity pill, orforglipron, is crucial as the company races to file for approval and tries to maintain its dominance in the burgeoning GLP-1 market. The company and its main rival, Novo Nordisk, faced supply shortages for their existing weekly shots after demand soared in the United States in recent years, although they managed to alleviate those problems.
Eli Lily's pill won a priority review voucher from the Food and Drug Administration in November, which will significantly speed up the regulator's evaluation of the drug to potentially a few months.
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 recent drug pricing deals with Trump that exempt companies from the taxes.
Eli Lilly said the Alabama site will bring 450 jobs to the area, including engineers, scientists, operations staff and laboratory technicians, as well as 3,000 construction jobs.
