Eli Lilly and Company has broken ground on a new $5-billion manufacturing facility in Goochland County, Virginia, west of Richmond, Virginia, which will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and finished medicines. The new facility is part of Lilly’s previously announced $50-billion investment in US manufacturing by 2030. 

The Richmond site will be Lilly’s first to produce both API and finished medicines in a fully integrated facility, with dedicated API capacity for bioconjugates and large-molecule medicines. The facility will produce antibody-drug conjugates. 

The new facility is one of 10 new US manufacturing sites that the company has announced since 2020 and one of five new sites that will produce APIs. These 10 sites are:  

• Richmond, Virginia; Huntsville, Alabama; Houston, Texas; and two sites in Lebanon, Indiana – Lebanon API and Lilly Medicine Foundry, which will also focus on new production methods and making medicines for clinical trials. 

• Four will make injectable medicines and manufacture devices: Research Triangle Park and Concord, North Carolina; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. 

• One will make genetic medicines in Lebanon, Indiana; Lebanon Advanced Therapies. 

Lilly also announced that it has committed $40 million to support the Virginia Center for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, a statewide network of industry, government, and higher education partners. The network will include a pilot-scale, hands-on training center in Goochland County, with a targeted opening in 2028. Lilly expects the new facility will create 650 high-wage jobs such as engineers, scientists, operations personnel, and lab technicians, along with approximately 1,800 construction jobs.   

Source: Eli Lilly and Company