Eli Lilly On Wednesday, he said that he will invest at least $ 27 billion to build four new manufacturing sites in the United States, since the demand for its great weight loss and diabetes injections shoot and the company develops new medications for other conditions.
It occurs when drug manufacturers and companies in different industries work to build goodwill with President Donald Trump, who has emphasized manufacturing to the United States and reducing the dependence of foreign supply chains. It has threatened companies, and pharmaceutical businesses in particular, with tariffs if they do not manufacture products in the United States.
Eli Lilly made the announcement at an event in Washington, DC, emphasizing the political nuances of the strategy. The event had several speakers of the Trump Administration, including Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council of the White House, and the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who explicitly linked the announcement to Trump's policies.
Lutnick said the investment is “exactly what the Trump administration is about, which is building, manufacturing and remaking in the United States, investing in the United States, building in the United States.” He thanked Eli Lilly for “doing exactly what the president expected to happen.”
Lutnick added that “if you want to understand the tariff policy” of the United States “, I have articulated it.”
The measure leads to the manufacturing investments of the US of Eli Lilly to more than $ 50 billion in recent years. The other $ 23 billion come from the company's investments in new plants and expansions of the site since 2020, which has helped relieve the supply shortage of its popular medicines.
“This represents the greatest investment of pharmaceutical expansion in the history of the United States,” said Eli Lilly CEO, David Ricks, at the event. “We are making these investments … to prepare for the demand we anticipate for future pipelines in our therapeutic areas.”
The company's shares closed more than 1% higher on Wednesday.
Three of the future American sites announced on Wednesday will manufacture active ingredients in medicines, such as Tirzepatide, the active ingredient in the Eli Lilly Obesity medication, the treatment of diabetes and the treatment of Mounjaro diabetes. Ricks said there is a “real gap in the supply chain in the United States in regards to the active availability of ingredients in our country.”
The fourth place will extend the company's global manufacturing network for future injectable therapies, he added.
Eli Lilly has not decided where the four new American sites will be located, Ricks said. The company will accept location presentations until March 13 and announce decisions about new sites in the coming months.
Eli Lilly said the four new sites will create more than 3,000 jobs for workers as engineers and scientists, along with 10,000 construction jobs as plants are built. The other US plants of the company include sites in North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The new investments are not dedicated solely to the current and future treatments of Eli Lilly's obesity and diabetes. The company is drawing its future beyond Zepbound and Mounjaro, hoping to manage medications from its wide pipeline for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other conditions.
Ricks said the company is optimistic about its pipe in the therapeutic areas, including cardiometabolic health, oncology, immunology and neuroscience.
Even so, the new investments are based on the success of Zepbound and Mounjaro, which share the rise market domain for the so-called GLP-1 drugs with Novo NordiskThe medication to lose weight of the treatment with Ozempic. Some analysts expect the world market for obesity medications to be worth more than $ 150 billion annually in the early 2030s, which makes it critical that both companies maintain their participation as other medications come together to join.
During the event, Ricks had an opportunity for cheaper compound versions of its injectable drugs, saying that “the United States faces a growing threat of an influx of counterfeit drugs and compounds.”
Eli Lilly's efforts to increase Zepbound's supply and Mounjaro aim to ensure that eligible patients safely access these brand treatments instead of cheaper compound versions. Patients mass went to those unmpeary imitators when brand medications were scarce, or if they had no insurance coverage for expensive treatments.
Since then, the FDA has declared the shortage of Tirzepatide, which will essentially prohibit many compound pharmacies when making imitators.
Hasset said the problem “disturbs the White House” because drug producers on the high seas are “threatening lives in the United States”
In another sign of the political objectives of the announcement, Ricks promoted the Trump Tax and Jobs Cutting Law in 2017, saying that the legislation has been “fundamental” for the company's manufacturing investments. He called it “essential that these policies extend permanently this year.”
The key provisions of that law will expire at the end of December, although a reduction in the corporate tax rate will remain in force.
This legislation, approved by a Republican majority congress during Trump's first mandate, was the largest review of the Tax Code in almost three decades that reduced taxes for people and companies. He reduced the corporate tax rate to 21%, limited deductions for state and local taxes to $ 10,000, and extended child tax credit, among other efforts.
“Long -term progress will also require that United States policies continue to protect intellectual property rights and promote an innovative environment where we can do our job,” Ricks said.
Novo Nordisk has similarly invested billions in manufacturing to increase the supply of Wegovy and Ozempic, announcing in 2024 that it would take three sites of the contract manufacturer for $ 11 billion.
