On Tuesday, US Eastern Time, US pharmaceutical giant Eli LillyEli Lilly announced a $5 billion investment in a manufacturing facility in Goochland County, Virginia, to increase production of APIs and finished products for advanced therapies such as targeted cancer drugs. During U.S. trading, Eli Lilly's stock price rose by over 2.5%.
Eli Lilly stated that the new plant will be used to produce active ingredients for cancer and autoimmune disease drugs, as well as other advanced therapies. Eli Lilly emphasized that the plant will significantly enhance the local production capacity of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
ADCs are an emerging class of targeted therapies, often referred to as "biological missiles" in the industry. They combine monoclonal antibodies with toxic "payloads" to kill cancer cells. Currently, several pharmaceutical companies are developing or have already launched these drugs and are exploring their use in autoimmune diseases and other indications.
"This is new capacity to support pipeline growth," said Dave Ricks, Lilly's CEO. "We have a number of new products that require both biologics and ADC platforms. This facility is unique in that we can complete the entire process in-house, from drug synthesis to formulation filling and finishing, all the way to shipping finished product. We don't currently have this capability."
He added that the company will shift some production capacity from Europe and third-party manufacturers to the new Virginia plant.
Ricks explained that Virginia was chosen for its location, logistics, labor availability, and location. "The site has already been used for other industrial purposes, so the infrastructure and utilities are already in place. We are now working hard to expedite the plant's commissioning to keep pace with the pipeline's progress."
He also pointed out that building factories in the United States is mainly related to the tax environment, rather than the threat of tariffs. "Building factories in the United States is more reasonable now than in the past." He has previously praised Trump's 2017 tax cut bill, believing that this tax reform has prompted companies to increase investment in the United States.
Eli Lilly said the Virginia plant will use a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligenceWe use advanced technologies including FDA to achieve a "first-time success" production process and ensure the safe and reliable supply of drugs.
The new plant is expected to create more than 650 permanent jobs in Virginia, including engineers, scientists, operations staff and laboratory technicians; and will also bring approximately 1,800 construction worker jobs during the construction period.
Lilly's other U.S. plants are located in North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The company's additional investment in the United States comes as its weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment drug Mounjaro are being developed in partnership with Novo Nordisk.Both companies have invested billions of dollars in expanding production capacity, easing supply constraints in the U.S. market.
In February of this year, Eli Lilly announced that it would invest at least US$27 billion to build four new factories in the United States. Combined with the US$23 billion invested since 2020, the total investment in this round of expansion is close to US$50 billion.
Eli Lilly said it will announce the sites for the remaining three factories this year and expects all new factories to be operational within the next five years.
Pharmaceutical companies are stepping up efforts to expand production in the United States as Trump threatens to impose tariffs on imported drugs. Trump claims that this move will encourage companies to "bring production back to the United States" to reverse the significant decline in domestic pharmaceutical production capacity over the past decade.

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