While much of the company’s recent focus remains on strengthening U.S. infrastructure, Eli Lilly has moved for the second time this week to increase drug manufacturing capacity overseas, and again in Asia.
The company announced Thursday a 20 billion yen (approximately $126 million) expansion of its Seishin factory in Kobe. Lilly’s local unit plans to install a new production line there and add a new warehouse by 2028, according to a Japanese press release (PDF).
Lilly did not say which medicines the expansion would support, but Nikkei Asia reported on March 12 that the project would boost manufacturing of drugs to treat diabetes and obesity.
According to the release, the Seishin factory was established in 1981, currently employs approximately 315 people, and serves as Lilly’s only in-house production facility in Japan.
Lilly said that apart from new production lines and storage space, the investment will facilitate digitization of the factory and process optimization to facilitate supply to the Japanese market.
Citing “increasing demand” in Japan, Lilly said, “It is important to respond quickly and flexibly to future supply increases.”
The company noted that it has so far invested 7 billion yen (approximately $44 million) in the Seishin facility from 2022 to 2025, paving the way for new automated device sorting machines, quality testing lab improvements, a new factory building, and fresh packaging lines.
“This additional investment was made in response to the need to further expand our supply capacity,” Lilly said of the spending.
According to a company statement, the factory currently covers an area of 23,000 square meters (247,570 square feet) and is primarily involved in analytical testing, inspection and packaging of Lilly products.
Lilly, in collaboration with local partner Mitsubishi Tanabe, recently launched tirzepatide, a dual GIP/GLP-1 treatment for both diabetes and obesity indications, in Japan (PDF), and the company also won approval in Japan for its Alzheimer’s disease drug Kisunra in 2024.
Lilly’s spending in Japan comes on the heels of a major $3 billion investment in the company’s manufacturing operations in China, where the pharmaceutical giant has committed to establishing local production of oral solid medicines, particularly Orforglipron, a GLP-1 tablet for obesity that is undergoing regulatory review in multiple regions around the world.
The project will span more than a decade and will involve Lilly working with multiple local manufacturing partners, the first of which is Beijing-based CDMO Pharmaron.
The Indianapolis drug company also recently committed to investing $500 million in South Korea. The funding is aimed at attracting clinical trials to the country instead of manufacturing, while also supporting the opening of an incubator as part of Lilly Gateway Labs.
Back in the United States, Eli Lilly has been building several high-profile factories in recent months, most recently with plans to build a $3.5 billion injectables and devices facility in Pennsylvania. Prior to that, the company telegraphed new manufacturing locations in Virginia, Texas and Alabama.
These investments come amid a flurry of similar moves in the U.S. by big pharmaceutical companies seeking to overcome the threat of drug import tariffs from the Trump administration.
