Lilly in $400 Million Expansion at Indianapolis

Eli Lilly is investing $400 million at its Lilly Technology Center campus in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, to expand capacity for its growing portfolio of diabetes medicines and provide additional manufacturing capacity for future medicines emerging from its pipeline.

The US drugmaker said the expanded facilities will provide 100 “highly skilled” new jobs for humans as well as adding robots and other technology.

Additions to the device and packaging assembly operations are to include a high-tech warehouse that Lilly said uses the latest technologies in warehousing, along with automated guided vehicles and robotics.

All of the projects support the company’s investment in next-generation manufacturing and feature high levels of automation, robotics, new technologies and advanced data analytics, said Myles O'Neill, president of Lilly’s manufacturing operation, who also credited US president Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts with creating an impetus for investment.

According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, the Indianapolis city-county council two years ago also awarded Lilly a tax abatement of $7 million, spread over ten years for a $91 million investment.

Together with fellow drugmakers Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, Lilly came under pressure this year during US Senate hearings into rising insulin prices. The list price for the company’s Humalog insulin was cited by senators as a prime example of routine price hikes that limit patient access.

Under the name Lispro injection, Lilly in May rolled out a generic copy of Humalog that sells for $265.20 for a five-pack of pens, 50% less than the branded drug, which remains on the market.