Lilly Expands Big but Stays Green: A New Era In Mindful Manufacturing

With the skyrocketing demand for GLP-1s to treat diabetes and obesity, Lilly is making unprecedented investments in manufacturing and expanding its capabilities to support these treatments and its other top-selling medicines. The company is significantly increasing its capacity to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and enhancing its global network for parenteral products and device manufacturing. Since 2020, Lilly has invested over $18 billion in building, upgrading, and acquiring facilities across the U.S. and Europe. 

To meet the growing demand, the company is leveraging cutting-edge technology, including robotics, highly automated manufacturing processes, and greater digitalization. As Lilly scales up its production to meet this record demand, the company is also carefully considering its use of resources and energy. A Lilly spokesperson highlights how the company’s manufacturing processes and collaborations with contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) are designed to minimize environmental impact while supporting its ambitious expansion efforts.

Lilly spokesperson said in a statement, “We are utilizing advanced technologies such as machine learning, AI and a variety of automated robotics and systems in our manufacturing processes to help increase our speed and efficiency. For example, our Research Triangle Park (RTP) site in North Carolina is one of Lilly’s most advanced manufacturing facilities to date, equipped with automation integrated into nearly every facet of the supply chain. This includes automated guided vehicles, automated warehousing, robotics, and highly automated production equipment, to accelerate the production of medicines at RTP. This level of automation requires extensive technical expertise and training across the production cycle, including operators, technicians, engineers and scientists. Similar to our RTP facility, Lilly’s new facility in Concord, North Carolina, will have high-speed manufacturing lines capable of significantly increasing our production.”

The spokesperson further added, “Lilly has a responsibility to reduce our environmental footprint and serve our local communities. That said, we are being thoughtful in how we use our world’s valuable resources and energy when making our products. For example, we ensure appropriate controls are in place with Lilly contract manufacturers to prevent the discharge of pharmaceuticals in wastewater above applicable PNEC-based limits for Pharmaceuticals in the Environment. Through the end of 2023, we completed assessments of 100% of our contract manufacturers. All contract manufacturers were found to have appropriate controls in place to meet the established PNEC-based limits.”

The spokesperson concluded by saying, “We have also taken steps to educate and engage our suppliers directly on Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) issues to help them build expertise around these topics. This includes our ongoing work as part of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), a non-profit business membership organization founded in 2006, which counts Lilly as one of its inaugural members. In 2023, Lilly HSE professionals led the Industrial Hygiene PSCI supplier capability building team and served on several of PSCI’s supplier capability building teams. We’re making ambitious efforts to meet the current and future demand and building new facilities at record speed – going from breaking ground to producing medicine in just two years, three years faster than the industry average. Also, all our manufacturing sites are running 24/7 operations and our large and growing manufacturing workforce is committed to this capacity expansion.”