Manufacturing & quality
Everyone deserves a chance at health
Making medicines: safety first, quality always
Have you ever wondered what it takes to make medicine? For most people, it’s not something you think about. That’s not the case for us. Manufacturing and Quality (M&Q) is a critical part of our mission and a responsibility we take seriously. Tens of thousands of employees work daily to ensure the quality and consistency of manufacturing of our medicines.
But our manufacturing focus goes beyond the demands of today. We’re investing in the future. From the time a medicine shows promise in a clinical trial, we’re planning and preparing for the approval of the medicine, including investing in new facilities. We’ve launched 21 new medicines since 2014, with more expected in our pipeline. That’s why we’re constantly pursuing innovative ways to scale our global production and help more people—always with safety and quality standards front and center.
What does it take to make the medicines of tomorrow?
Investing in
significant manufacturing network expansion
Using technology
to work faster while maintaining safety and quality
Leveraging external partners
to enable more efficient delivery of medicines
The Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, USA
We plan to invest more than $3.5 billion in a new injectable medicine and device manufacturing facility that will produce next-generation weight-loss therapies.
Huntsville, Alabama, USA
We plan to invest more than $6 billion in a next-generation manufacturing site focused on small molecule synthetic and peptide medicines across various therapeutic areas.
Katwijk, Netherlands
This $3 billion investment will enhance our supply chain resilience and expand manufacturing capacity for our oral medicines across key therapeutic areas.
A $1.2 billion investment will expand and modernize our existing site, integrating advanced technologies and automation to support the reliable supply of high-quality oral medicines.
Houston, Texas, USA
Read more about the new Texas site.
Goochland County, Virginia, USA
Read more details about the new Virginia site.
Kenosha County, Wisconsin, USA
We announced a $3 billion expansion of the injectable manufacturing facility which we acquired in April 2024 in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, to support the increased demand for Lilly medicines. The acquisition, expansion and additional purchases of land and the adjacent warehouse bring our total planned investment in Wisconsin to $4 billion—the single largest U.S. manufacturing investment outside of our home state of Indiana. Medicine production at the existing state-of-the-art facility and the construction of the expansion are both planned to begin in 2025.
Read about the Kenosha County facility acquisition.
Read about the $3 billion expansion of the Kenosha County facility.
Limerick and Kinsale, Ireland
Our Kinsale site employs a digital-first process that integrates continuous manufacturing technology to create a new manufacturing platform for complex peptides. An additional $800 million expansion to Kinsale’s pivotal site will help meet the demand and maintain a safe and reliable supply of Lilly’s diabetes and obesity medicines.
Read about the $1 billion expansion of the Limerick site.
Lebanon, Indiana, USA
Our total investment in manufacturing facilities in Lebanon is $9 billion. This is the single largest investment in active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing of synthetic medicines in U.S. history. In addition to delivering next-generation therapeutic modalities, including genetic medicines, we will boost production of API at this site.
Read about the $9 billion investment in the Lebanon, Indiana, manufacturing facility.
Research Triangle Park and Concord, North Carolina, USA
Read about the Research Triangle Park expansion.
Read about the Concord investment.
Alzey, Germany
Read about the Alzey manufacturing site.
Investing in the communities where we build
[Music playing.]
[White Lilly logo animation appears on screen on a red background.]
[Exterior drone scenes of Harney Elementary School building, American flag, parking lot, sign that reads “Harney School.”]
00:06-00:13
KATIE REASONER
One of the first things we did in the community was to fund STEM grants for the four elementary schools to launch their STEM programs.
[Interior scenes of classroom. Awards for robotic competitions. Close up of small robot on table with lots of gears moving.]
00:14-00:20
SAM KLEIN
It's been great to get to be a part of what's going on here, especially at the elementary school level, and see their excitement around stem.
[Interior scenes with man in red shirt helping a girl in a white jersey with red hair and purple glasses. Woman with blue hair and black glasses in a red shirt watching. Man in red shirt holding robot.]
00:20-00:30
JENN HENNESSY
Do we maybe want to try a different part of some sorts? Helping 'em solve the problems, getting that look of that light bulb going off is always fun to see.
[Interior scenes of Lilly volunteers in red shirt helping class. Man in black shirt instructing student with red hair and glasses with a small robot on the table. Multiple students on laptop computers and robots next to them with Lilly volunteers in red shirts.]
00:31-00:37
MATT FARRELL
When they see the people working with them and the outcome that can happen through their own discoveries. It's pretty amazing.
00:38-00:46
SOPHIA NOLAND
I think my favorite part is just to come here and be yourself and be creative and test things out and see what you could find for yourself.
[Interior scenes with girl with red hair and white jersey and another girl in a red jersey. Man with a red shirt watching over students. Same students working on small robotic car on table.]
00:47-00:54
KATIE REASONER
Being a mom and having children who were raised in Boone County that went to some of these same schools, it's just great to see and help the next generation.
[Interior scenes of kids building robots. Lady with blonde hair and glasses watching over student. Girl with brown hair and gray hoodie working on robot.]
00:55-1:07
SAM KLEIN
The number of lives we’ll impact with the products we make, and then also the business and things that are being brought in. By having the site here and being able to be incorporated into the community with volunteering activities and different events, it's great.
[Interior scenes of Lilly employee volunteer in blue shirt helping a blonde hair kid. Lady Lilly employee volunteer helping same kid with blonde hair. Kids making project out of foil and other electronic components. Lady Lilly employee volunteer with glasses helping out girl in gray hoodie and pony tail. Male Lilly employee volunteer helping out student. Another lady Lilly employee volunteer overseeing project. Boy with blue jersey and blonde hair working on laptop.]
01:08-01:21
MATT FARRELL
Being able to get real scientists to walk in here, real engineers to walk in here. They may never, ever get to meet unless they were in college or later in life and say, hey, this is a
career I might want to do. You can just see the kids have dreams now.
[Exterior scenes with a white van with picture of babies on it and reads “Indiana diaper bank.”]
[Interior scenes of many men and women Lilly volunteers wearing red shirts sorting and packaging diapers in a warehouse setting.]
01:24-01:38
ROCHELLE MCKINNEY
Today, we are packaging diapers for people in need in the community. There's lots of stress points when you're raising young families and the opportunity to package diapers to release one lever of stress. It just feels really impactful.
[Interior scenes of more diaper sorting. Numerous men and women Lilly employees with red shirts packaging diapers into clear plastic bundles. A lady wearing a black shirt with long brown hair putting bundles of diapers into a large crate.]
01:39-01:55
ASHLEY BURNS
With diapers costing between 80 and a hundred dollars a month, families having sometimes more than one child, the cost really adds up when families are in need of diapers. Research states that they're 25 to 50 diapers short each month, so that if we provide those diapers that we know families can change diapers more often.
[Interior scenes of more diaper sorting in warehouse setting. Man in black with short blonde hair packing diapers. Lady in light blue shirt with brown hair making tally marks on a white board counting how many bundles are packed so far.]
01:56-2:06
KATIE REASONER
If you don't have enough diapers for your child to be changed X amount of times, then they can't go to daycare, and if they can't go to daycare, then you cannot go to work. It really is a basic need that a lot of people just take for granted.
[Interior scenes of multiple Lilly volunteers in red shirts packing, stacking and sorting diapers. Lady in a gray shirt with gray hair packing a bundle of diapers. Man in red and white hat and red shirt with long bear and tattoos wrapping plastic around a bundle of diapers. Close up shot of small pieces of paper going into each bundle.]
02:07-02:30
ASHLEY BURNS
We heard the need in Boone County for diapers, so bringing on partner agencies so that diapers in their neighborhoods in which families work and live is really an important piece of what we do to eliminate the barriers for families. I appreciate the fact that Lilly is committed to supporting their community too, because diaper need is not something we can just do by ourselves, but being able to work together to support the community and eliminate that barrier for families is a really important aspect.
[Interior scenes of a woman and man with red shirts squeezing diapers into plastic bundles and closing them up.]
02:31- 02:44
ROCHELLE MCKINNEY
And it's really fun to come together as a team. It gives us an opportunity to show our manufacturing excellence, operational excellence in a different way that's going to really be of impact in the community.
[Transitions to white Lilly logo with red background.]
[Music fades out in the background.]
Our investments are about more than facilities. They are about:
- Creating high-quality jobs
- Supporting local economies
- Building lasting relationships within the communities we join
Together, these efforts help strengthen the communities we become part of and lay the foundation for future milestones and years of shared progress.
Innovation Comes to Life in Manufacturing
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The 'Lilly' logo appears on a red background
Text on screen says Beata Barati, Senior Robotics Engineer
[00:03]
My name is Beata Barati, an engineer at Lilly.
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Beata sits on a chair in the office looking to camera.
[00:06]
I've been here going on three years. I did not think I was going into the pharmaceutical industry. My interest was biomedical engineering for the purpose of designing prosthetics. That's really, when I went into college that's what I thought I was wanting to do. It changed significantly because I had an awesome internship at Lilly where they asked me, where are your interests or passions, and I said, robots are cool. I saw robots at Lilly and I said, I want to dabble in that. With my mechanical engineering background I found interest in the mechatronics aspects of it and the technical aspects of it. I gave it a shot and I loved it, and it's turned into now my career is robotics.
[00:40]
The biggest fulfillment I get out of my career is really the value that I feel like I can contribute and add to these teams. Going on three years at Lilly, I have yet to transition a role. I love what I do because I can be such a valuable contributor to all of these conversations. I have developed a strong technical expertise in the robotics area. Having that influence and being able to, a young female engineer out of college having that technical expertise, I feel so much support from the other women engineers around me and the allyship from men. I have never had a bad experience at Lilly.
[01:15]
You are able to mold your career and your future, and you have such an impact at Lilly if you're able to voice the changes that you want to make.
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The 'Lilly' logo appears on a red background
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Innovation comes to life in manufacturing
Manufacturing responsibly
What it takes to make a medicine
We often hear about the investment it takes to find the next great medicine. But ensuring those medicines can reach the people who need them also takes significant resources and can be just as complex. Our M&Q teams are constantly evolving and expanding capabilities to find the most cutting-edge ways to deliver. The teams are responsible for a diverse set of products and systems that help us create the active ingredients, the medicines themselves, and the devices to package and deliver those medicines. It's a complex, methodical, science-based process.
These sites require significant resources: specialized equipment, top-of-the-line facilities and highly skilled employees. We’re using robotics, automated guided vehicles, automated warehousing, and highly automated equipment to speed production. At one of our most recent sites using this technology in North Carolina, we are capable of doubling production compared to our other facilities. As we use more automation, we’re also investing in our team, providing extensive technical expertise and training for operators, technicians, engineers and scientists.
More than making medicine
Music starts
A woman walks through an industrial hallway(00:01):
If you are looking for a job that will benefit you in the present and the long run,
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A woman is at a desk holding a clipboard
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Lilly is definitely the company that you want to go for.
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A woman is smiling in a bright hallway
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My name is Sydney Blane, but everybody calls me Syd. I'm an operator here at Lilly, and I work in manufacturing.
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Sydney and another woman are using an industrial device
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Coming to a company like Lilly, your growth paths are unlimited. You can go from operations to quality control or quality assurance, or you could become a process engineer.
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Sydney is filling up vials in a lab
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You can move throughout this company where you see fit. You're in control of your own destiny here.
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Sydney is using a microscope
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Whereas other jobs, it was a short road, here is a long road.
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Sydney and another woman are walking through a hallway
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In the five years I've been here, I've had the opportunity to meet with different people on every level.
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Sydney and another woman are sitting and talking in a lounge
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I've had video chats with our VP of manufacturing. I had a coffee and chat with the CEO of Lilly, Dave Ricks, just the other week. It's nice to feel included on every level and respected from every level. Like, hey, you're not just a button pusher…
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Sydney and two other women are talking in a lab
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or a medicine maker out there in the field.
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Sydney and two other women walk up a staircase
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You actually matter here. Your input matters here.
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Sydney is using an industrial device
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Your voice matters here.
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Sydney is at a desk using a computer
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I love to work here. It feels like a sense of accomplishment.
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Sydney is filling a small container with liquid
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I'm contributing to this company that's contributing to society and the world. If you're looking for a career versus just another job,
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Sydney and another woman are sitting and talking in a lounge
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Lilly is definitely the place you want to work.
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Sydney is smiling in an industrial room
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The 'Lilly' logo appears on a red background
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The people behind the medicines
Thousands of employees are behind the scenes ensuring our medicines meet our quality and safety standards. A big part of making sure we have the right people on our team is making sure our employees are supported; empowered to learn and grow; and that we’re prioritizing their well-being and safety.
It takes diverse talent to make the medicines that so many around the world count on. From engineers who help continuously improve our facilities, equipment and processes, to technical services and operations team members who are front and center controlling production, every person in M&Q plays an important role in changing people’s lives.