Eli Lilly has announced plans to build a facility in Houston, Texas, for the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
The plant will be a next-generation synthetic medicine facility, focusing on small molecule medicines for cardiometabolic health, oncology, immunology, and neuroscience. It will create 615 high-wage jobs when it is operational as well as 4,000 construction jobs over the next five years. It is the second U.S. site Lilly has announced this year, with two more to come.
The announcement shortly follows publication of research on Lilly’s new weight loss oral medication. Orforglipron is a small-molecule, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. People without diabetes taking the treatment once a day achieved weight loss as high as 15% to 20% after 72 weeks. Lilly expects to submit the drug to global regulatory agencies for obesity this year. If the application is a success, the new site in Texas will manufacture orforglipron in the future.