Eli Lilly and Company has announced that it will be building a $6 billion plant in Huntsville, Alabama, to increase domestic production of small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
This follows a recent announcement that Lilly is creating a $6.5 billion facility in Texas, also for small molecule APIs. It is one of nine U.S. manufacturing sites the company has announced since 2020. The plant in Alabama is expected to create 3,000 construction jobs until its completion in 2030 as well as 450 jobs for lab technicians, engineers, scientists, and operations personnel.
The plant will be producing small molecule synthetic and peptide drugs. This includes orforglipron, Lilly’s oral GLP-1 receptor agonist. After a successful third phase 3 trial for orforglipron, Lilly announced in August 2025 that it had the full clinical data package required to initiate global regulatory submissions and bring to market a once-daily pill to treat obesity. This past October, the drugmaker said that the pillmet most criteria for the FDA's new national priority voucher, suggesting it is a strong candidate for a significantly accelerated approval review.