Lilly breaks ground on $5B Virginia manufacturing facility

• Eli Lilly broke ground on a $5B integrated manufacturing facility in Goochland County, Virginia. • Site will make antibody-drug conjugates, creating 650 jobs and 1,800 construction jobs. • Lilly committed $40M to a Virginia pharma manufacturing training network opening 2028. Eli Lilly broke ground on a $5 billion manufacturing facility in Goochland County, Virginia — its first site designed to produce both active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished medicines in one fully integrated plant. The facility will focus on antibody-drug conjugates, targeted cancer treatments pairing antibodies with cytotoxic drugs. The project is expected to create 650 permanent jobs — engineers, scientists, operations staff and lab technicians — plus roughly 1,800 construction jobs during the build. Lilly Chair and CEO David Ricks said the investment lets the company manufacture its next generation of precision cancer medicines domestically. Lilly has pledged $40 million to the Virginia Center for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, a statewide training network that will include a pilot-scale center in Goochland County targeted to open in 2028. The Richmond-area site is one of 10 U.S. manufacturing facilities Lilly has announced since 2020, five of which will make active pharmaceutical ingredients. It is targeting LEED Gold certification and will use machine learning and AI in its operations. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger called the investment a "powerful vote of confidence" in the state.