Eli Lilly invests $9 billion to increase supply of blockbuster drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro

Eli Lilly and Co., is more than doubling its investment in an Indiana manufacturing site to increase production of ingredients in its blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs.

The expansion to produce the ingredients in Zepbound and Mounjaro will increase the cost of the project from $3.7 billion to $9 billion.

“Today’s announcement tops the largest manufacturing investment in our company’s history and,we believe, represents the single largest investment in synthetic medicine API manufacturing in U.S.history,” said David A. Ricks, Lilly’s chair and CEO, in a prepared statement.

A KFF analysis found Medicare spending on three drugs − Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Rybelsus and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro − surged from $57 million in 2018 to $5.7 billion in 2022.

This story will be updated.

Binghui Huang can be reached at Bhuang@gannett.com or 317-385-1595