Eli Lilly and Company has completed a $90-million expansion of its Biotechnology Center in San Diego, California. The facility will accelerate the discovery of medicines within the company’s core therapeutic areas of immunology, diabetes, oncology and neurodegeneration as well as the emerging area of pain, according to the company.

The center features a new laboratory and an additional 180,000 square feet of working space, which is an increase of 145% compared to the former facility. Lilly hopes the facility will allow for closer partnership between the company and experts in biotechnology, discovery chemistry, and research technologies while also fostering external collaborations.

The new space, the Lilly Life Science Studio, builds upon the company’s automated synthesis laboratory in Indianapolis and will allow researchers to remotely design, synthesize, and screen investigational molecules.

These plans use part of the $850-million investment Lilly announced earlier this year for research laboratories, manufacturing sites, and general and administrative areas. Nearly $250 million of Lilly’s $850-million capital investments will be dedicated to supporting its research and development centers around the US, including the center in San Diego, in 2017.  Lilly’s other US research centers are located in Indianapolis, Indiana; Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 2017, Lilly plans to spend approximately $5 billion on global R&D, nearly $4 billion of which will be invested in US-based programs, including projects with biomedical research institutions in California.

Source: Eli Lilly and Company