Eli Lilly and Co. on Tuesday officially announced plans to build a $5 billion manufacturing plant just west of Richmond, Virginia, as part of the Indianapolis drugmaker’s commitment to add U.S. manufacturing sites through a $27 billion reshoring investment unveiled early this year.
The new facility in Virginia’s Goochland County is the first of four new manufacturing locations Lilly plans to announce this year.
Indianapolis-based Lilly said the new plant would create more than 650 jobs in Virginia for engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, as well as 1,800 construction jobs. The Virginia plant is expected to be completed within five years.
The company has not publicly commented on the potential locations for the three additional manufacturing facilities it plans, including any possible further investment in Indiana. Lilly has said the investments are part of $50 billion in U.S. capital expansion commitments it has made since 2020.
Lilly said it selected Goochland County from hundreds of applications because of factors including the available workforce in the Richmond area, local incentives, favorable zoning, and access to utilities and transportation.
Goochland County, with a population of only around 25,000, sits on the western edge of the Richmond metro area and also is close to Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia. Richmond has the VA Bio+Tech Park dedicated to life sciences near the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center.
According to Lilly, the new site will utilize AI machine learning, with the company partnering with local universities and supporting educational initiatives in Virginia.
The plant will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients, or API, for cancer, autoimmune and other advanced therapies.
“Our investment in Virginia underscores our commitment to U.S. innovation and manufacturing—creating high-quality jobs, strengthening communities and advancing the health and well-being of Americans nationwide,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in written remarks. “By expanding our domestic capacity, we’re building a secure, resilient supply chain that delivers for patients today and supports the breakthrough medicines of tomorrow.”
The Virginia plant would be Lilly’s first dedicated to API and drug products for Lilly’s emerging bioconjugate platform and monoclonal antibody portfolio, according to the company.
The site will also boost Lilly’s domestic manufacturing of antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, which are therapies designed to target diseased cells directly. Such medicines are primarily used to fight cancer but also are being investigated to treat autoimmune diseases and other conditions, Lilly said.
In announcing its U.S. manufacturing expansion in February, Lilly said it already was in talks with several possible locations and invited other locales to approach them as well.
Lilly said its capital investments and job commitments go beyond what the company initially committed to in the Virginia incentives process.
The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, created by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, will provide support for the job creation, according to Lilly.
In praising Lilly’s decision, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in written remarks, said the new facility was “positioning Virginia to lead in the industries that will drive innovation for generations to come.”
The drugmaker previously had announced $23 billion in U.S. commitments since 2020. Those include, in Indiana, new facilities at the LEAP Research and Innovation District and the development of the Lilly Medicine Foundry, both in Lebanon, as well as expansions and updates to several Indianapolis manufacturing facilities.
The company has also announced new sites at Research Triangle Park in Concord, North Carolina, and the acquisition and expansion of its manufacturing site in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.