Lilly put another $4.5 billion into its Lebanon, Indiana manufacturing complex Wednesday, pushing the company’s total U.S. manufacturing pledge this decade past $50 billion.
Of that sum, more than $21 billion targets Indiana specifically. The fresh capital expands two facilities at the 600-acre LEAP Research and Innovation District site: Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies, a genetic medicine plant that held its ribbon cutting Wednesday, and Lilly Lebanon API, the active pharmaceutical ingredients facility still under construction.
What Lilly gets from the API plant is the point. It’ll supply tirzepatide, the active ingredient behind Mounjaro and Zepbound, plus the newly launched oral obesity pill Foundayo and the investigational triple hormone receptor agonist retatrutide. When it opens, the company says it’ll be the largest API plant in the United States.
The third Lebanon facility, the $4.5 billion Lilly Medicine Foundry, targets a 2027 completion and will combine R&D with clinical trial manufacturing of cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s therapies across 1.2 million square feet.
Across the decade, Lilly has lined up API plants in Virginia ($5 billion), Alabama ($6 billion), and Houston ($6.5 billion), plus a $3.5 billion injectables facility in Pennsylvania. The broader industry committed $370 billion in U.S. manufacturing investment in 2025, per DPR Construction, much of it driven by Trump administration tariff threats.
Lilly accounts for 70% of Indiana’s pharmaceutical GDP, and every Lilly job supports more than two additional jobs across the state. The API plant’s completion date hasn’t been announced.
Diana Kowalski