Major manufacturing investment to support API production for tirzepatide

A new $5.3 billion investment for Eli Lilly and Company’s manufacturing site in Lebanon, Indiana, US, increases the firm’s total investment there from $3.7 billion to $9 billion. This expansion will expand manufacturing capacity of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for Zepbound^® (tirzepatide) injection and Mounjaro^® (tirzepatide) injection. These treatments are indicated for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

This new $5.3 billion investment “tops the largest manufacturing investment in our company’s history and, we believe, represents the single largest investment in synthetic medicine API manufacturing in US history,” commented David Ricks, Eli Lilly’s chair and CEO. “This multi-site campus will make our latest medicines, including Zepbound and Mounjaro, support pipeline growth and leverage the latest technology and automation for maximum efficiency, safety and quality control.”

Benefits of the tirzepatide API investment

Supported through this new investment to expand API capacity for tirzepatide, Eli Lilly stated that anticipates an additional 200 full-time jobs including engineers, scientists, operating personnel and lab technicians will be added at the Lebanon, Indiana site.  

Furthermore, the company estimates that a total of 900 people will be employed full-time at the facility when it is fully operational.

A learning and training centre will be part of the larger Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace (LEAP) Research and Innovation District industrial development, Eli Lilly confirmed.

Eli Lilly anticipates that medicine production at the Lebanon site will begin near the end of 2026.

Manufacturing for the future

The company highlighted that it has committed over $16 billion to develop new manufacturing sites in the US and Europe since 2020, including in a biologic facility in Limerick, Ireland.

Eli Lilly added that it has invested more than $18 billion to update its existing US manufacturing facilities. These include a $1.2 billion investment at its Indianapolis site and an injectable manufacturing facility in Wisconsin. The latter facility was recently acquired from Nexus Pharmaceuticals.

Eli Lilly reveals plans for new high-tech parenteral manufacturing site