Eli Lilly & Company opened a new genetic medicine facility in Lebanon’s LEAP Innovation District on May 6. The company also announced an additional $4.5 billion investment into the district project.
Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies — the new facility — is the pharmaceutical company’s first of three facilities to open on the campus.
It unveiled the facility at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the campus.
“As we open this production facility and announce this next phase of investment, I’d simply frame it as this: Lilly’s legacy of partnership in Indiana continues,” Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said in opening remarks, “and the best measure of what that legacy can do is what it does next.”
Ricks said the company wants to be a good neighbor to Lebanon.
Dozens of people gathered to see one of the first operational facilities in the LEAP District. Guests included Gov. Mike Braun, Lebanon Mayor Matt Gentry and Lilly employees.
Braun touted the partnership as a win for Indiana as Lilly makes new advances in medicine.
“This purpose-built genetic medicine manufacturing facility will be key to continuing to innovate and turn science into healing. Eli Lilly’s continued investment in Indiana manufacturing sites is a commitment that strengthens our state, creates opportunity for Hoosiers and elevates our state on a national level,” Braun said.
Lilly plans to produce next generation medicines on the campus.
During a tour, the company debuted some of the new technology. Scientists in white lab coats monitored robotic machines that maneuver, dose, measure and seal the medicines.
The company has planned for the campus to produce medicines Zepbound for weight management and Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes.
Wednesday’s announcement also revealed plans for Foundayo, a daily pill for weight loss, and retatrutide for use in treating obesity and cardiometabolic disease, to be manufactured in Lebanon.
Lilly will invest an additional $4.5 billion in the campus, bringing its total capital expansion commitments in Indiana to more than $21 billion since 2020, it said in a press release. The two other planned facilities are the Lilly Medicine Foundry and Lilly Lebanon API.
Some at the ceremony heralded Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies as the future of medicine, including Lilly Group Vice President of Molecule Discovery Andrew Adams. He said the current U.S. healthcare system is “actually sick care.”
“We’ve built an entire system that involves waiting for symptoms, waiting for diagnoses, waiting for a disease to reshape someone’s life before we do anything about it,” he said. “But with genetic medicine, we ask a fundamentally different question: not how do we treat disease, but how can we potentially stop disease before it starts?”
The announcement is the latest in the partnership between Indiana and Lilly. Last month, Braun’s office announced a nonbinding letter of intent for the two to explore nuclear energy technology development, but the letter did not provide details on what those plans are.
In remarks to reporters, Braun addressed their joint interest in nuclear energy solutions. He said his goal is to leverage the state’s relationship with the Trump administration to position Indiana as a leader in small modular reactors, or SMRs, and to scale up the technology.
“Likely whichever state gets there first is going to be in the catbird seat. And I think Lilly’s a part of that, they realize the potential of it, and we’ve been working on that since I’ve been governor,” he said.
Ricks did not share further details with reporters about those plans.
Lilly will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary. A second production facility under construction — the Lilly Lebanon API, which stands for “active pharmaceutical ingredient” — will open in 2027.
“When you understand the genetic code driving disease, you can begin to rewrite people’s stories earlier, before the damage is done,” said Adams, the Lilly vice president.
Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org
