GOOCHLAND, Va. — A $5 billion Eli Lilly and Company plant rising in Goochland County will be the company’s first U.S. site to make both drug ingredients and finished medicines, the company said as it broke ground Thursday.
The plant will produce antibody-drug conjugates, a type of cancer treatment. The drugs use antibodies to carry cell-killing medicine to diseased cells while limiting exposure to healthy tissue. The same class of treatments is also being explored for autoimmune diseases and other conditions.
Goochland is one of 10 U.S. manufacturing sites Lilly has announced since 2020. Five of the 10, including Goochland, will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients. It will have dedicated ingredient capacity for bioconjugate and large-molecule medicines, the company said.
Lilly expects the plant to create 650 high-wage jobs, among them engineers, scientists, operations staff and laboratory technicians, along with about 1,800 construction jobs while it is built. The company said it is already hiring in the Richmond area.
“Lilly’s investment is a powerful vote of confidence in Virginia, our people, and our ability to compete for the industries and good jobs that will shape our future.”
“We are developing a new generation of medicines designed to target cancer cells with greater precision, yielding more powerful treatments with potentially fewer side effects,” Lilly Chair and CEO David A. Ricks said. “This $5 billion investment means we can make them right here in America.”
To staff the plant, Lilly has committed $40 million to the Virginia Center for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, a statewide network of industry, government and higher education partners. The network will include a pilot-scale training center in Goochland County, with a targeted opening in 2028.
“Lilly’s groundbreaking marks a significant investment in Goochland County and an exciting step forward for our community,” said Jonathan Christy, chairman of the Goochland County Board of Supervisors.
The site will run on machine learning, artificial intelligence, digitally integrated systems and advanced data analytics, and Lilly is targeting LEED Gold certification for the facility. The project is part of more than $50 billion the company is spending to expand medicine production in the United States.
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