Breaking ground to support groundbreaking science: The Lilly Medicine Foundry

When you’re living with a disease and waiting on a medical breakthrough to help you live healthier, you don’t have time to waste. But the process for discovering new potential medicines doesn’t happen overnight.  

It takes dedicated scientists who are relentless in the pursuit of new, bold discoveries. Then, clinical trials allow us to test and ensure whether a medicine is safe and effective. Once approved by the FDA, it requires precision in developing the systems to efficiently and safely manufacture and distribute medicine to those who need it most.  

That’s where the Lilly Medicine Foundry comes in. We recently broke ground on the facility, a state-of-the-art location combining research, process development, manufacturing, and the latest technology at a single site. Located in Lebanon, Indiana, the Foundry will enable us to research new, optimized ways of producing medicines to help scale global access to clinical trials supply, while reducing environmental impact.  

The flexible design of the Foundry will support various molecular therapies, including small molecules, biologics and next-generation therapeutics like genetic medicines. This will allow us to meet the needs of complex conditions, like Alzheimer’s disease and chronic pain.  

The Foundry’s strategic location in the LEAP Lebanon Innovation District will offer close collaboration with other Lilly product development teams in Indianapolis and manufacturing sites in Lebanon to drive faster and smarter innovation across our company.  

So, why is this important for patients? The Foundry will ensure a consistent supply of investigational medicines and help us control the development of those medicines to accelerate clinical trial efficiency globally. Once operational, the facility will dramatically reduce clinical trial timelines, especially in rare diseases, cutting the typical wait to join from years to just months.  

Expected to produce the first batch of investigative medicine for clinical trials in 2027, the $4.5 billion facility is the most strategic capital investment in the U.S. pharma supply chain in a generation. The Foundry, spanning approximately 1.2 million square feet, is also expected to add more than 500 full-time jobs for highly skilled workers and 2,000 construction jobs during site development.  

Our goal at Lilly is to keep pushing the boundaries on what’s possible to reach people with our medicines sooner. And we’ve made progress. We’ve reduced the time it takes from the first human dose of a medicine in a clinical trial to its official launch from an average of 11 years to 6. But it’s not enough. We want to continue pushing for ways to do things differently to get to patients faster, because we know they’re waiting.