Eli Lilly said Wednesday it will invest $27 billion to build four new manufacturing plants in the United States as the pharmaceutical giant grapples with the threat of drug import duties from the Trump administration.
The Indianapolis-based company said three of the planned facilities will be dedicated to producing active pharmaceutical ingredients for its medications, while the fourth will focus on sterile injectable medicines, including the popular weight-loss drug Mounjaro.
Eli Lilly said the investment will create 3,000 high-skilled positions and approximately 10,000 construction jobs.
The new sites will be announced later this year and are expected to be operational within five years, the company said
This significant investment comes on the heels of Apple’s announcement this week to invest $500 billion in the US over the next four years as President Donald Trump continues to push for the revitalization of American manufacturing.
The move also comes as pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, seek to align themselves with the new administration while advocating for policies that would benefit the industry, such as an extension of the corporate tax cuts implemented during Trump’s first term.
“We hadn’t built a new site in the US in more than 40 years until the first set of Trump tax cuts, so we need to see those either extended or improved to support this,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said at a press conference in Washington, DC.
Ricks was joined by key Trump administration figures that included Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, as well as Indiana Sen. Todd Young.
“We need steel mills, we need precursor medicines. These are the fundamental underpinnings of America that we need to reshore,” Lutnick stated.
Shares of Eli Lilly were up by around 0.5% in midday trading Wednesday, at $906.70 a share. The company stock has soared more than 16% since Jan. 1.
While many pharmaceuticals are produced domestically, a significant portion of the industry’s supply chain relies on overseas production.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley note that Ireland and Switzerland play a key role in drug manufacturing, while active pharmaceutical ingredients are frequently sourced from China.
Additionally, Indian firms are responsible for producing a large share of lower-cost generic medications.
Trump has previously threatened to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, a prospect that has raised concerns among industry representatives.
However, analysts believe that such levies would likely have minimal financial repercussions for drug manufacturers due to the high profit margins associated with many medications.
Eli Lilly is currently engaged in negotiations with multiple states regarding the placement of its new manufacturing facilities and has indicated that it remains open to additional proposals through mid-March.
The company’s latest commitment follows a $23 billion investment in its US operations between 2020 and 2024, which included the development of new manufacturing sites in Wisconsin and North Carolina, as well as expansions in its home state of Indiana.
