Eli Lilly CEO David A. Ricks speaks during a news conference at Generation Park in Houston, Monday, September 23, 2025. The company announced plans for a $6.5 billion biomanufacturing plant in north Houston. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Raquel Natalicchio | Houston Chronicle | Getty Images
Elie Lilly announced Tuesday that it will spend $6 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Alabama, to help boost production of its closely watched experimental obesity pill and other drugs.
This is the third in a series of new U.S. investments planned by the drugmaker. Eli Lilly announced in February that it would spend at least $27 billion to build four new domestic manufacturing plants, adding to $23 billion in previous investments since 2020.
The company said it expects construction of the Alabama plant to begin in 2026 and be completed in 2032.
“Today’s investment continues the reshoring of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production, strengthening supply chain resilience and reliable access to medicines for patients in the United States,” David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, said in a statement.
This additional production capacity for Eli Lilly’s obesity pill, ouforglipron, is crucial as the company races to seek approval and tries to maintain its dominance in the booming GLP-1 market. The company and its main rival, Novo Nordisk, have faced supply shortages for their existing weekly shots after demand in the United States soared in recent years, although they have managed to mitigate those problems.
Eli Lily’s pill won a Priority Review voucher from the Food and Drug Administration in November, which will significantly speed up the regulator’s review of the drug, potentially by a few months.
Drugmakers have been scrambling to increase production in the United States after President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the United States. But concerns about those potential tariffs have eased following recent drug pricing deals with Trump that exempt companies from those taxes.
Eli Lilly said the Alabama site would bring 450 jobs to the region, including engineers, scientists, operations personnel and laboratory technicians, as well as 3,000 construction jobs.