Eli Lilly will spend $5.3 billion to boost manufacturing capacity for its hot-selling anti-obesity drug Zepbound and cousin diabetes drug Mounjaro, a huge investment to ease shortages of the popular drugs.
The company is expected to announce Friday that it will significantly expand a production site that is under construction on 600 acres in Lebanon, Ind., about 30 miles from Lilly’s Indianapolis headquarters. Together with funding that it previously committed, Lilly will spend $9 billion total on the new site, the largest manufacturing investment in its history.
Lilly’s rival, Novo Nordisk, also has been unable to keep up with demand for its similar drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy, causing supply disruptions. The companies have committed billions of dollars to increasing manufacturing capacity to meet the soaring demand for the drugs.
Zepbound was introduced in late 2023 and is already generating more than 74,800 prescriptions a week in the U.S., on average, according to J.P. Morgan analysts. Mounjaro average weekly prescriptions have risen 48% from a year earlier to more than 300,000.
Novo Nordisk in November said it planned to spend more than $6 billion to expand production at a manufacturing site in Denmark. This February, Novo said it would pay $11 billion for manufacturing plants that its owner agreed to buy as part of a deal acquiring contract manufacturer Catalent.
“You’ve seen the impressive demand we’ve had for our medicines,” said Edgardo Hernandez, president of Lilly’s global manufacturing operations. “That’s driving the investments.”
But these projects take years to complete, and both Novo and Lilly have said they don’t expect to make enough products to satisfy demand in the near term. Some patients have turned to custom-made, or compounded, versions due to shortages as well as cost.
Lilly said it expects the Lebanon site to begin making medicines toward the end of 2026, and that operations will increase over the subsequent two years.
Lilly’s new site will produce tirzepatide, the main ingredient of both Zepbound and Mounjaro. The plant also will be capable of making other drugs, including experimental anti-obesity drugs that Lilly has been developing, if they succeed in clinical testing and are approved by regulators, Hernandez said.
The company expects more than 5,000 construction workers will build the facilities, and that 900 Lilly employees will staff the site when it is fully operational.
Indiana’s state government is providing Lilly with certain economic incentives tied to the company’s hitting investment and employment goals.
Lilly also has started other projects to bolster manufacturing capacity in North Carolina, Ireland and Germany in recent years.
