American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has tapped Huntsville, Alabama, as the location for its third orforglipron manufacturing facility.
Set to enter construction in 2026, the $6bn site will create 3,000 construction roles. The company also expects to offer more than 450 skilled jobs, including engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, when the site opens.
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At the new facility, Eli Lilly will manufacture both small molecule synthetic and peptide medicines such as the newest potential addition to the company’s glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) arsenal, orforglipron.
To achieve this, Lilly will incorporate machine learning (ML), AI and digital automation into the site’s operations to streamline operations and secure its supply chain.
This will not be the pharma’s first rendezvous with next-generation technology, as it recently teamed up with NVIDIA to build the pharma’s “most powerful” supercomputer to accelerate the drug discovery process.
The Alabama building falls under Eli Lilly’s wider US onshoring move, which will see the company invest $27bn into its pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure across the country.
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By GlobalDataThrough this drive, Lilly will construct four new sites, including a $6.5bn orforglipron manufacturing site in Texas. The company will also invest $1.2bn into the expansion of its orforglipron production facility in Puerto Rico.
Lilly will also build a $5bn bioconjugate and monoclonal antibody (mAb) production facility in Virginia – a state that is becoming an increasingly popular destination for biotech and pharma, key opinion leaders (KOLs) previously told Pharmaceutical Technology.
Eli Lilly’s move to expand its US manufacturing presence comes amid rising threats from the Trump administration, which has claimed it will impose 100% tariffs on branded pharmaceuticals unless companies are “breaking ground” on a US manufacturing facility. Tariffs of this nature are yet to be implemented.
Eli Lilly is also looking to bolster its European manufacturing footprint. This will see the company develop a new $3bn orforglipron manufacturing site in the Netherlands while expanding its site in Limerick, Ireland, in a $1bn bid.
Eli Lilly poised for continued growth
Eli Lilly’s rapid footprint expansion comes at a time when the company is experiencing immense growth, which recently saw it join the $1tn market cap club alongside tech giants Apple, Tesla and Nvidia.
This business boom is primarily driven by its obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D) portfolio, which currently includes best-sellers Zepbound and Mounjaro (tirzpatide).
However, Eli Lilly could be poised for further growth in this category, as the company is currently preparing to submit a new drug application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for ofrorglipron.
An annual sales and consensus forecast from GlobalData predicts that orforglipron will become a mega-blockbuster seller for Eli Lilly, bringing in $13bn in 2031. GlobalData currently estimates that orforglipron will launch in 2026.
GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.
However, Eli Lilly will likely have to come up against rival Novo Nordisk in the oral GLP-1RA category, as the Danish pharma is currently awaiting an FDA decision on its weight loss pill, oral Wegovy (semaglutide). The agency is expected to make the call on oral Wegovy in Q4 2025.
