Eli Lilly has chosen Pennsylvania to house a new $3.5bn manufacturing facility that will produce a forthcoming wave of new weight loss therapies, marking the culmination of a new quartet of drug plants unveiled by the big pharma company over the past year.
The latest and final manufacturing facility will be established in Lehigh Valley, a region in Eastern Pennsylvania that lies in the centre of the US Northeast megalopolis. Lehigh Valley already has manufacturing in its roots – at one point being one of the largest steel producing hubs in the US. Currently, the $9bn in GDP produced by Lehigh Valley’s manufacturers represents 16% of the region’s economy.
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With Lilly’s arrival, a pharmaceutical manufacturing sector will soon exist. Lilly will place an injectable medicine and device manufacturing facility on the site, making the company’s next generation of weight loss therapies. This will include retatrutide, the company’s GIP, GLP-1 and glucagon triple hormone receptor agonist, which is in Phase III trials.
Around 850 engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians will work at the site, which Lilly anticipates will be operational in 2031. The company added that it will partner with local universities and invest in education across the Northeastern state to more broadly develop talent.
Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), integrated monitoring and data analytics will be installed at the plant to streamline the weight loss therapy supply chain.
Lilly’s CEO, David Ricks, said: “To meet increasing demand, we’re expanding our US manufacturing network, with Lehigh Valley adding capacity for next‑generation weight-loss medicines. We’re creating high‑quality jobs and collaborating across the region – with suppliers, educators, and workforce‑development partners – to make critical medicines in the US.”
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By GlobalDataQuartet of Lilly mega-sites
The site selection means that Lilly has now unveiled plans for all four facilities it pledged as part of a $27bn investment in the US, which was first announced in February 2025.
A $5bn active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and drug product facility in Virginia was the first site to be revealed in September 2025. Later that month, Lilly showcased plans for a $6.5bn manufacturing facility in Texas, which will make the drugmaker’s oral weight loss pill orforglipron. The third announcement came in the form of another orforglipron plant, a $6bn small molecule synthetic and peptide medicines facility in Texas, revealed in December 2025.
US supply chains have been the name of the game in the pharma industry over the past year amid an onshoring manufacturing push by US President Donald Trump, fuelled by tariff outlays.
Lilly is also keen to avoid the shortages that were seen with tirzepatide brands Zepbound and Mounjaro throughout 2024 and early 2025.
For Lilly, the four mega-sites in the US are part of a wider $50bn investment strategy into the US that has been in action since 2020. This included a $1.2bn expansion of a site in Puerto Rico in October 2025 – a move to further bolster supply chain resilience.
