Eli Lilly increases investment to almost $1bn for new Irish manufacturing facility

Eli Lilly has said it will be doubling the planned investment in its new biologics manufacturing facility in Ireland, bringing the total spend up to almost $1bn.

The company originally announced its plans to build the Limerick-based facility in January 2022, which it anticipates will be its ‘most technically advanced manufacturing site to date’.

Lilly said the site will utilise ‘the latest biologics manufacturing technology’, including advanced data collection and analysis systems that will deliver improvements in safety and quality, along with increased productivity and process performance.

Construction of the new 500,000 sq. ft. facility is currently underway at national development agency IDA’s business park in Raheen and is expected to create more than 300 highly skilled jobs across areas including engineering, scientists and operations.

IDA Ireland interim chief executive officer, Mary Buckley, said: “Eli Lilly has had a presence in Ireland for over 40 years and this significant investment, adding further biologics drug substance manufacturing to its already substantial Irish operations and jobs, underscores the strategic importance of Ireland in Eli Lilly’s global operations.”

Lilly made its first investment in Ireland in 1978 and currently employs more than 2,700 people in Cork, where it has a large manufacturing campus in Kinsale, as well as a Global Business Solutions Centre in Little Island.

The company cited an ‘increased demand’ for existing products when it announced its plans for the Limerick facility, adding that the site would play a key role in the manufacture of its clinical pipeline products, including its Alzheimer’s portfolio.

Its experimental Alzheimer’s drug, donanemab, was rejected for accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in January this year due to the company not submitting enough trial data from patients with at least 12 months of drug exposure.

Lilly outlined in a statement that its phase 3 TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 2 trial remains ongoing, with the top line data – expected in the second quarter of this year – set to form the basis of donanemab's application for traditional approval.

Lilly entered into a partnership with Roche last week to develop a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease which, if approved, could help streamline the journey to diagnosis for more patients.