Eli Lilly to sell Branchburg, New Jersey plant as drugmaker repositions manufacturing
Eli Lilly intends to sell its production site in Branchburg, New Jersey, Endpoints News first reported and a company spokesperson confirmed to Pharma Manufacturing. While the facility has had several run-ins in recent years with regulatory authorities in the United States, the planned sale is part of the drugmaker’s broader global manufacturing strategy.
In 2019, FDA inspectors documented numerous quality control problems at the site, while the U.S. Department of Justice in 2021 delved into quality concerns surrounding the plant, responsible for manufacturing a COVID-19 treatment. In early 2024, Reuters reported that an FDA inspection at the Branchburg facility in July 2023 flagged eight separate deficiencies including problems in tracking manufacturing process and quality controls, as well as lapses in its calibration of equipment and failure to properly maintain equipment.
However, Lilly’s intention to sell the Branchburg facility appears to be based on the company’s recent reprioritization strategy and not on manufacturing issues at the plant, as it moves away from monoclonal antibodies toward more complex biologics.
“Following a comprehensive assessment, we are repositioning our manufacturing operations to our new facilities to optimize future flexibility for our evolving pipeline,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The decision reflects our commitment to ensuring our network is best positioned to meet the needs of our robust pipeline.”
In February 2025, Lilly announced a $27 billion investment to build four new U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing sites — three for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and one to manufacture injectable products and devices. At the time, the company said it was investing in infrastructure needed to deliver on its “big bets” on next-generation modalities such as small molecules, biologics, and nucleic acid therapies.
“While we have not yet announced the locations of our four new U.S. facilities, we plan to do so soon once each site is selected,” the company spokesperson said.
Lilly expects to announce all four future site locations in 2025 and anticipates that the new manufacturing facilities, which will create 10,000 construction jobs and more than 3,000 skilled jobs, will begin making medicines within five years. Construction on the sites is set to begin this year.
“We have a long-term plan to deliver big bets on next-gen modalities, and we are currently leading the largest manufacturing expansion in Lilly’s history,” the spokesperson said. “Since 2020, we have committed more than $55 billion globally to grow our manufacturing capacity, with more than $50 billion in the U.S. alone.”
Tariffs, geopolitical tensions
CEO Dave Ricks has said that Lilly supports the Trump administration’s goal of bringing pharma manufacturing back to the U.S. but doesn’t see tariffs as the “right mechanism” for reshoring. Ricks has urged President Trump to drop tariffs and embrace tax incentives instead.
In Lilly’s comments submitted in response to an ongoing Department of Commerce probe into whether the importation of certain pharmaceuticals threaten U.S. national security, Lilly warned that “some measures — like tariffs — that increase the cost of medicines or decrease the capital available to manufacturers will actually worsen the problem this Administration seeks to address.”
According to Reyana Casey, managing director of life sciences at commercial real estate and investment management firm JLL, biopharma companies like Lilly have recently been making strategic decisions related to their manufacturing footprints for a host of reasons.
“Factors influencing these decisions are both regional and global and include economic pressures in the U.S., coupled with needs to serve global product requirements while addressing aging infrastructure,” Casey told Pharma Manufacturing.
She also cited new formulations and drug delivery methodologies as well as the need for speed-to-market as critical factors, which sometimes require manufacturing changes that can impact the ultimate serviceability and long-term viability of a site.
“One might say that these organizations are making their choices and changes with intentional and surgical precision,” Casey said.
Driven by the Trump administration’s threat of pharmaceutical tariffs and other cost pressures, a JLL report in June 2025 noted that 15 major pharma companies have so far announced more than $270 billion in U.S. biomanufacturing and R&D investments planned over the next five to 10 years.
