CONCORD, North Carolina — Eli Lilly (THERE IS) on Friday unveiled its newest manufacturing facility in Concord, North Carolina, which the company says will help alleviate bottlenecks in manufacturing GLP-1 drugs.
The injectable drugs, Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss, are two of Lilly’s most popular products over the past year, sending the company’s stock up nearly 100%.
The new, more than 1 million square foot facility will begin manufacturing the injectable pens in 2025. This is part of an ongoing strategy to expand manufacturing to meet unprecedented demand.
Lilly and its competitor Novo Nordisk (NGO) constitute the duopoly that controls the current GLP-1 market, and demand is greater than what the companies combined can supply.
Lilly CEO Dave Ricks recently told the Wall Street Journal that the market would need to build 10 to 15 new facilities to meet current demand.
The company has already identified or started building seven facilities, investing $18 billion in the strategy, according to Executive Vice President Edgardo Hernández.
The Concord installation alone cost the company double your initial investment$2 billion instead of $1 billion.
Hernandez said the company built the Concord facility in two years, faster than the industry standard of nearly five years.
He credits North Carolina’s political will as well as the FDA’s willingness to work together in real time to ensure the company meets the specifications required by the FDA to ensure a streamlined authorization process.
Additionally, the company has integrated robotic capabilities into the process to speed up manufacturing.
“We use robots to interact with the equipment to reduce human intervention,” which also reduces the potential for contamination, Hernandez said.
Wall Street estimates that GLP-1 drugs could earn the company $13.5 billion in 2024. That’s more than double the $5.2 billion reported in 2023, which also explains why the company raised its forecast for the year 2024 of 2 billion dollars.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior healthcare reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharmaceutical, insurance, healthcare, digital health, PBMs, and healthcare politics and policy. Follow Anjalee on all social media platforms @AnjKhem.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
