Eli Lilly To Invest $85 Million In Local Manufacturing

Eli Lilly announced Friday it will invest $85 million this year to expand manufacturing in Indianapolis. It’s part of a five-year effort to meet higher demand for diabetes medicine.

The expansion will allow Eli Lilly to increase the manufacturing of Trulicity, a diabetes product the company launched a couple years ago.

Maria Crowe is president of manufacturing operations at Eli Lilly.

“We already manufacture some of this product here in this facility, and this expansion will allow us to increase the capacity. We’re seeing a very fast-growing demand for the product, which is excellent,” Crowe says.

The move comes in stark contrast to other news about manufacturing this year, namely Carrier and Rexnord shipping hundreds of its Indianapolis jobs to states and countries with lower average wages.

Crowe says Eli Lilly’s commitment to stay guarantees the company a healthy pool of qualified workers. She says many of the operators and technicians that Lilly recruits come from Central Indiana.

“In addition we recruit a lot of college graduates – engineers, scientists, chemists – we draw from many of the universities in Indiana, and a bit farther afield,” Crowe says.

Crowe says in order to keep investing in Indianapolis the company needs to ensure that that qualified workforce doesn’t go anywhere, and that the state and the country continues support for its manufacturing efforts.