Eli Lilly and Co. plans to spend an additional $5.3 billion to expand its site in the LEAP Lebanon Innovation District, more than doubling the company’s previous commitment, the company’s chair and CEO said Friday.

The Lebanon location will be the largest manufacturing expenditure in the company’s history, said David Ricks, its chair and CEO.

Ricks said the success of its latest Type 2 diabetes and obesity medicines made the expansion necessary, as demand has outpaced supply. The site will produce active ingredients for Eli Lilly’s pharmaceuticals, including tirzepatide, used in the company’s popular diabetes drug Mounjaro and weight loss treatment Zepbound.

The company first planned to spend $2.1 billion at the Lebanon location. Then, during the site’s April 2023 groundbreaking, the company announced it would raise the amount by an additional $1.6 billion. Eli Lilly’s commitment at the site now totals $9 billion.

Spurred by tirzepatide research results, the company has committed more than $18 billion toward manufacturing sites worldwide since 2020, the company said.

The Lebanon location is the “largest pharmaceutical site we can find information about ever built in the United States,” Ricks said. The company also believes the site represents a record spend on active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing of synthetic medicines in the U.S. 

With the increase, the company expects to erect more buildings at its nearly 600-acre site in the district and create an additional 200 full-time jobs for engineers, scientists, operating personnel and lab technicians. In total, 900 new jobs are anticipated at the company’s Lebanon location, with an additional 5,000 construction jobs expected during peak construction.

Eli Lilly looks to begin making medicines in Lebanon near the end of 2026, with operations scaling up through 2028, it said in a news release.

To complement the expansion, the state wants to — pending approval — contribute land for the construction of a learning and training center that will be part of the LEAP development. The state has also committed to helping the company raise capital for the center.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. has committed an additional investment of up to $500,000 in the company through incentive-based training grants, according to the governor’s office. The IEDC also committed up to $20 million in redevelopment tax credits and $15 million in road infrastructure improvements, based on the expansion.

Ricks announced his company’s planned expansion at the 2024 Indiana Global Economic Summit, where he was joined by Gov. Eric Holcomb, U.S. Sen. Todd Young and Indiana Secretary of Commerce David Rosenberg.

Asked whether the increased production would help lower the price of Lilly’s popular drugs, Ricks told reporters federal insurance programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, should help cover the cost.

“We need to think of obesity as a disease and cover it with insurance,” Ricks said.

Rosenberg addressed concerns surrounding the innovation district’s water needs, saying an Indiana Finance Authority study will determine “where those pockets of water are coming from.” He also noted officials haven’t decided whether a pipeline will be built to draw water from the Wabash River. (Some Hoosiers, especially in the Lafayette area, have bemoaned the possibility of a pipeline that could pump water from the Wabash River to the innovation district.)

Young noted the economic impact of the announcement and praised Holcomb’s involvement.

“I think most governors — to say something about Gov. Holcomb’s role in this — as they approach the end of their term, they’d be thankful maybe to have one big announcement in the final year, final six months or so,” Young said. “We are this year alone — I’m losing track — five or six big announcements [in] and you still have a few months left.”

In recent weeks, the state has announced several large investments, including an $11 billion Amazon Web Services data center coming to the South Bend area.

Ricks made headlines two years ago by highlighting areas in which he believed the state needed to improve, including health care costs and workforce development efforts. He told reporters Friday he has been “encouraged by the response” to his comments.

Contact Jarred Meeks on X @jarredsmeeks or email him at [email protected]. 

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