Eli Lilly is continuing its global investment drive to ensure it can meet future demand for its highly anticipated oral weight loss drug orforglipron, outlaying $3bn to expand its supply chain capacity in China.
Announcing the 10-year investment on WeChat, Lilly also revealed it submitted an application for orforglipron for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity to China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) at the end of 2025.
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This investment will occur via a building out of Lilly’s pre-existing facilities and by establishing external collaborations. The former will be via an expansion of existing incretin injection production capacity at its Suzhou plant, along with adding oral solid dosage form production capacity in Beijing. The drugmaker will also cooperate with multiple local production partners to bolster production capacity – the first of these is a $200m collaboration with Pharmaron, a Chinese CDMO.
Eli Lilly’s manufacturing site in Suzhou was established in 1996 and has become a critical hub for the company’s operations in China. Following a recent $212m investment in October 2024, the site is undergoing a major expansion to increase production for diabetes and obesity medications.
Eli Lilly vice president and general manager of China, Huzur Devletsah, said: “The increased investment in Beijing signifies our continued commitment to improving our full-value-chain supply system in China to better meet the growing needs of Chinese patients.”
The recent pledge means Lilly’s total investment in China has reached nearly $6bn. Lilly is cementing a long-term strategy to maintain orforglipron production across the world. In February 2025, Lilly announced the last of four new manufacturing facilities it plans to construct in the US as part of a $27bn investment drive. At least three of these have been confirmed as production hubs for weight loss therapies such as orforglipron.
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By GlobalDataOrforglipron, Lilly’s once-daily oral glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA), demonstrated weight loss of 12.4% over 72 weeks in overweight adults at the highest dose in a Phase III trial.
GlobalData, parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology, currently forecasts that orforglipron – if approved – will generate global sales of $13bn in 2031. With such a high sales ceiling, Lilly is preparing itself for significant supply chain demands. The big pharma company said it has already built up nearly $550m worth of orforglipron-related inventory in the US.
Lilly recently reported a 45% surge in 2025 revenue, spearheaded by Zepbound and Mounjaro sales of 13.5bn and $23bn, respectively.
