Eli Lilly and Company A $4.5 billion center will be built to find better ways to make drugs.
The facility, called the Lilly Foundry, will develop new manufacturing methods and focus on improving efficiency. The strategy is already paying off with Eli Lilly’s obesity and weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, and Lilly hopes it will drive growth for the rest of its pipeline.
The foundry has a dual purpose: to research new manufacturing processes and then put them into practice to produce drugs for clinical trials. Eli Lilly said the facility will be the first of its kind to combine research and production at one location.
“The idea is to take the molecules that are on the bench in the lab and put them into drugs in the pharmacy, and this R&D center will do that,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Indianapolis. This work.
The center is expected to open by the end of 2027 and will be equipped to produce small molecules, biologics and genetic drugs. The plant will be close to a $9 billion manufacturing site that Eli Lilly is building in Lebanon, Indiana, to make pharmaceutical ingredients such as tissiparatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Cranes and steel frames stand in flat farmland at the construction site, about 40 minutes’ drive from Eli Lilly’s Indianapolis headquarters.
The investments are part of Eli Lilly’s plan to build on its success with Mounjaro and Zepbound, which join Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy in so-called GLP-1 drugs. set off a wave of popularity.
Mounjaro and Zepbound are expected to generate $50 billion in revenue by 2028, nearly double the company’s full-year 2022 revenue. Pressure to find and develop more new drugs.
Eli Lilly is already planning its future beyond tezepatide. The company also hopes to develop more drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
“All these huge opportunities to improve human health are hiding in plain sight,” said Dan Skovronsky, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Eli Lilly and Company. “In our industry, people often like to see what’s popular and then follow the leader. So a lot of other companies are now shutting down different research projects so they can try to figure out how to catch us up on obesity and Alzheimer’s. Well, we’re on to the next thing.
A sign bearing the company’s logo is seen outside Eli Lilly’s headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 17, 2024.
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Skowronsky said Eli Lilly is looking for “breakthrough ideas” in areas where the company already has a foothold, such as oncology and immunology, as well as in new areas such as cardiovascular disease, chronic pain and hearing loss.
Neuroscience is one of the areas he and Ricks want to focus specifically on. Eli Lilly has a long history with its antidepressant drug Prozac and its newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla, but they believe there is more work to do.
“Neuropsychology is a huge unmet need,” Ricks said. “Addiction and mental health, but also neurodegenerative diseases, so we have a lot of investment in that. Maybe the results we have in obesity can help fund research in new areas.”
That’s not to say Lily has escaped obesity.
Ricks acknowledged that one drug won’t fit all needs and that Eli Lilly needs to keep pushing the science forward. The company has 11 weight loss drugs in development with different mechanisms of action and delivery methods, he said. They include two closely watched drugs in Phase 3 trials: an experimental pill called orforglipron and another injectable drug called retarglutide.
Ricks said Eli Lilly is investing in all areas where it thinks it makes sense to address obesity, but acknowledged that other companies may explore new mechanisms that Eli Lilly may not have explored yet. He would like to see more drugs, especially those that can target multiple targets. He is also interested in techniques to reduce the frequency of injections, such as short interfering RNA.
Any new developments could help Eli Lilly become the first multi-trillion-dollar health care company. The company’s shares have soared nearly 65% in the past year, giving Eli Lilly a market value of about $840 billion.
Ricks downplayed the significance of hitting the trillion-dollar mark and said it was an outcome, not a goal, for Eli Lilly.
“We want to do something of value, and if we succeed, we create value,” Ricks said. “That’s how we get to bigger numbers.”
