Dive Brief:
- Eli Lilly said it will build a $6.5 billion factory in Houston focused on manufacturing the company’s first obesity pill and other small molecule medicines.
- The 236-acre site will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients, among them orforglipron, a small, oral GLP-1 receptor agonist, according to a news release. The molecule agonist is up for regulatory consideration later this year.
- Located at Generation Park, the factory will create 615 full-time jobs for the area, such as engineers, scientists and lab technicians, according to the Greater Houston Partnership. Construction is expected to finish in the next five years.
Dive Insight:
The Houston facility is the second of four U.S. manufacturing sites Lilly plans to unveil this year as part of a larger pledge to bolster domestic medicine production.
The first location was announced earlier this month and is set for Goochland County, outside of Richmond, Virginia. That $5 billion facility will make ingredients used in cancer and autoimmune treatments.
Like the Virginia project, Lilly’s Houston facility is receiving state support. It has been approved for a Texas Enterprise Fund grant of $5.5 million under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation program. The biopharmaceutical project is one of the first to be approved under Texas’ new program…