Lilly names Houston as site for $6.5bn API facility
Rendering of planned Houston facility, via Eli Lilly.
Eli Lilly has selected Houston, Texas, as the location for a major new facility for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in the US that will support its fast-growing weight-loss business.
The plant will be built over the next four years with an investment of $6.5 billion and employ around 615 workers when fully operational, whilst supporting some 4,000 construction jobs.
It is the second of four new plants announced by Lilly in the US under a $27 billion investment programme announced in February, following threats by the Trump administration of hefty tariffs on pharmaceuticals used by US citizens that are not made in domestic facilities.
Earlier this year, Lilly announced the first $5 billion facility would be located in Virginia and make monoclonal antibodies and bioconjugates, including antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) products, creating 2,450 high-wage manufacturing and construction jobs. The company plans to announce the two remaining locations this year.
Three of the four new sites will be used to produce APIs, which is significant as reliance on imported APIs from countries like China has been highlighted by successive US administrations as a vulnerability in the US supply chain. By some estimates, around 80% of APIs used in US medicines come from overseas.
The fourth will be devoted to sterile injectable manufacturing, and all four of the new plants are due to be operational in five years.
The Houston facility has been selected as one that will make orforglipron, Lilly's new oral GLP-1 agonist for weight-loss, which is due to be filed for FDA approval before the end of the year, along with other APIs for cardiometabolic health, oncology, immunology, and neuroscience medicines.
Lilly's chief executive, David Ricks, said recently that he sees tremendous potential for orforglipron thanks to convenient dosing compared to the current generation of injectable GLP-1 drugs that could unlock the primary care market, the ability to be manufactured at a large scale, and efficacy that is "competitive" with other drugs. Analysts at Jefferies have predicted the drug could eventually be a $25 billion-a-year blockbuster.
Its main rival looks likely to be Novo Nordisk's oral GLP-1 rival, based on semaglutide, which looks on course for approval this year after achieving impressive weight loss in a clinical trial that was in the same ballpark as injectables.
"Our new Houston site will enhance Lilly's ability to manufacture orforglipron at scale and, if approved, help fulfil the medicine's potential as a metabolic health treatment for tens of millions of people worldwide who prefer the ease of a pill that can be taken without food and water restrictions," said Ricks.
"This significant US investment and onshoring of our API production capabilities will ensure faster, more secure access to orforglipron and to other life-changing medicines of the future."
