Lilly adds $4.5B to Indiana sites, opens first dedicated genetic medicine facility

Eli Lilly’s investment in its home state of Indiana continues to gain momentum. The company on Wednesday announced that it is investing an additional $4.5 billion across two of its three Lebanon sites, including the opening of Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies — the drugmaker’s first dedicated genetic medicine manufacturing facility.

During Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting event, Rochelle McKinney site head for Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies said it is one of the company’s three facilities designed to “deliver the next generation of medicines right here from Indiana” for patients around the world.   

Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies will support both clinical and commercial production of therapeutics that “target disease at the genetic level and will include a full spectrum of genetic medicine modalities from research-stage development through large-scale commercial supply,” according to Lilly’s announcement.

McKinney told the audience at the ribbon-cutting event that Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies has been designed to support manufacturing approaches to help the drugmaker “respond to patient needs faster” with greater precision and reliability. She added that new modalities drove Lilly to develop new manufacturing processes and to create an end-to-end production site for multiple advanced therapy processes — a first for the company, which has traditionally spread those processes across different locations.   

“Designing and building for these modalities required developing new manufacturing processes without established commercial precedent,” the company said. “This facility is the first of three planned sites on the Lebanon campus, which will also include Lilly Lebanon API and the Lilly Medicine Foundry.”

Increasing investment in Lebanon

Two years ago, Lilly more than doubled its investment in Lebanon jumping from $3.7 billion to $9 billion and claiming it was the largest investment in U.S. history in API manufacturing of synthetic medicines. In October 2024, the drugmaker announced a $4.5 billion investment in Lebanon to create the Lilly Medicine Foundry, a new center for manufacturing and drug development.

The additional $4.5 billion investment announced on Wednesday includes new process designs and technologies at Lilly Lebanon API, one of the company’s future active pharmaceutical ingredient sites, according to the announcement. When it opens in 2027, the drugmaker claims Lebanon will be the largest API production site in U.S. history.

In 2024, Lilly announced plans to make Mounjaro and Zepbound — injectable medications for type 2 diabetes and weight management, respectively — at its Lebanon API site. However, Lilly’s latest investment expands that manufacturing plan, including planned production of Foundayo — the drugmaker’s FDA-approved, once-daily pill for weight loss —and retatrutide, an investigational triple hormone receptor agonist in late-stage development for obesity and cardiometabolic disease.

“This additional investment that we’re making today reflects the positive evolution of our pipeline and increased demand for our medicines here at home and around the world,” CEO Dave Ricks said during Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting event. “We’re building the most advanced manufacturing facilities to make those discoveries.”

Ricks added that “manufacturing is central to innovation itself” at Lilly, with the “ability to make medicines reliably and at scale and with uncompromising quality.”    

With the latest investment in Lebanon, Lilly’s total Indiana capital expansion commitments since 2020 come to more than $21 billion. Lilly said it accounts for 70% of Indiana’s pharmaceutical gross domestic product (GDP), based on a report slated for release next week by the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

US ground breakings to continue in 2026

This year, Lilly plans to break ground on several of its recently announced U.S. manufacturing sites.

In January 2026, Lilly announced plans to invest more than $3.5 billion in a new facility in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania that will produce its next-generation obesity therapies. The site, Lilly’s tenth U.S. manufacturing facility announced since 2020, will leverage technologies including artificial intelligence, machine learning, integrated monitoring, and data analytics. 

In December 2025, Lilly announced plans to invest $6 billion in a new API manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama that will produce small molecule synthetic and peptide medicines. A $6.5 billion API facility in Houston, Texas, announced in September, will focus on domestic production of small molecule synthetic medicines. Lilly also plans to build a $5 billion API manufacturing facility in Virginia, near Richmond.