Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, said it will invest an additional $27 billion to build four new manufacturing plants in the United States, shoring up domestic manufacturing as President Donald Trump threatens new tariffs on pharmaceuticals. <\/p>\n
Three of the sites will make active pharmaceutical ingredients, the foundational materials of medicines, while the fourth will make injectable products, the Indianapolis-based drug giant said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Trump said this month that he planned to impose tariffs of about 25% on goods including pharmaceuticals starting as early as April 2, and he warned drug industry executives in a private meeting last week that they should move production to the US, according to Bloomberg News. This week, Apple said it would invest $500 billion to expand US facilities after Trump announced 10% tariffs on imports from China. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf the wishes of this administration come true, you could see where most industries will need to reshore a lot of investment,\u201d said Ricks, who attended last week\u2019s meeting with the president. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do this quickly, because I think there will be constraints in everything from supply chain of building materials to energy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ricks emphasized that the plan to build so many new plants in the US relies on renewal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted in Trump\u2019s first term, which lowered the corporate tax rate in the US to 21% from 35%. <\/p>\n
If those policies aren\u2019t extended, he said, \u201cWe\u2019d have to re-look at the whole thing.\u201d <\/p>\n
Increasing US manufacturing of pharmaceuticals emerged as a more urgent priority during the Covid-19 pandemic as supply disruptions and concerns about access to crucial medicines laid bare the vulnerability of relying on imports from other countries. <\/p>\n
Still, much of that reliance \u2013 in particular, on China and India \u2013 is for generic medicines, Ricks pointed out, noting that Lilly doesn\u2019t make those drugs. The new plants will largely support new medicines, including future drugs in the same class as Zepbound and Mounjaro as well as medicines for cancer, immunology and neuroscience, Ricks said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat said,\u201d he added, \u201cit\u2019s dangerous for our country to have offshored production for whole types of technology like small-molecule synthesis, which is really not happening in our country at all anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n
Small-molecule drugs typically include oral tablets, using chemistry for manufacturing. <\/p>\n
\u201cLilly here, now, will have three massive plants,\u201d he said. \u201cSo in a time of a pandemic or something like that, could we repurpose it? Sure.\u201d <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not determined where the new plants, which are expected to start making medicines within five years, will be; Lilly said it\u2019s in negotiations with several states and welcomes expressions of interest until March 12. The company estimates that the plants will create 13,000 jobs in manufacturing and construction. <\/p>\n
They add to the US manufacturing sites Lilly\u2019s built since 2020, with commitments to invest a total of $50 billion with Wednesday\u2019s pledge. The company has been rapidly working to increase manufacturing capacity to meet outsized demand for Zepbound and Mounjaro, which \u2013 along with competitor drugs in the GLP-1 class, Novo Nordisk\u2019s Ozempic and Wegovy \u2013 spent two years in shortage. <\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, for good or bad, we\u2019re running our plants globally 24\/7, 365,\u201d Ricks said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a single hour of any day that every machine isn\u2019t working at Lilly right now, and that\u2019s not a sustainable thing for our teams and for doing the right scheduled maintenance and those sorts of things, but we\u2019re keeping up with runaway demand.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ricks said \u201cnext-generation projects\u201d aim to build on the weight-loss success of Zepbound, including a pill in development called orforglipron that\u2019s expected to have results from a late-stage clinical trial \u201cin the next three months or so\u201d and a medicine called retatrutide that Ricks called \u201csort of the next super weight-loss drug from Lilly.\u201d <\/p>\n
Used by millions of Americans, approved medicines in the class have revolutionized the way doctors approach weight loss, something Ricks pointed to as a way to help meet the Make America Healthy Again goals of the Trump administration and its health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat could be more important than controlling obesity?\u201d Ricks said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the single biggest lever that exists\u201d for affecting health outcomes, \u201cand we\u2019re at the forefront of that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Kennedy has sent mixed messages about his support for obesity medicines, saying in October that drugmakers sell them to Americans \u201cbecause we\u2019re so stupid and addicted to drugs.\u201d <\/p>\n
Asked about them during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy called them \u201cmiracle drugs\u201d but said they shouldn\u2019t be \u201cthe first front-line intervention for 6-year-olds, for whom they are currently\u201d \u2013 a false statement, as the medicines approved for kids are cleared starting at age 12. <\/p>\n
\u201cI find him to ask good questions and be a good listener; I think he\u2019s hungry for information,\u201d Ricks said of his interactions with Kennedy. \u201cWe\u2019ll push back when the science is clear and collaborate where we can. I think there\u2019s a lot more of the second than the first, from my initial impressions.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, said it will invest an additional $27 billion to build four new manufacturing plants in the United States, shoring up domestic manufacturing as President Donald Trump threatens new tariffs on pharmaceuticals. Three of the sites will make active pharmaceutical ingredients, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":423,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}