Drugmaker Lilly slates another $4.5B for manufacturing and drug development improvements

INDIANAPOLIS — Eli Lilly is pouring another $4.5 billion into expanding manufacturing and development as the drugmaker rakes in billions from new product sales.

The diabetes treatment maker said Wednesday that it will build a new center for advanced manufacturing and drug development a few miles from its Indianapolis headquarters.

The company said its Lilly Medicine Foundry will allow it to both research new ways of making drugs and build up manufacturing for clinical trials. Work on the site will start next year.

Lilly will add the center to a site in Lebanon, Indiana, where it is already spending about $9 billion to improve manufacturing. The company said in May that it also was expanding there to make more doses of its popular weight-loss and diabetes treatments, Zepbound and Mounjaro.

Those drugs have funneled fresh revenue to Lilly and prompted the company in August to push its annual forecast beyond Wall Street expectations.

Lilly shares soared to a new all-time high of $972.53 later that month.

Eli Lilly and Co. also said in September that it was spending $1 billion to expand manufacturing at a Limerick, Ireland, site.