Eli Lilly plans to build a new $6.5 billion manufacturing facility at Generation Park in Houston, Texas. This planned synthetic medicine active pharmaceutical product (API) facility, the second of four new U.S. sites Lilly will announce this year, will focus on manufacturing the company's pipeline of small molecule medicines. It is expected to be operational within five years.

Lilly will bring 615 new jobs to the Greater Houston area, including engineers, scientists, operations personnel, and lab technicians. The company also expects to generate 4,000 construction jobs as the site is being built and brought online.

The site will be among those that will manufacture orforglipron, Lilly's first oral, small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist, which the company expects to submit to global regulatory agencies for obesity by the end of this year.

Earlier this year, at a press conference in Washington, D.C., Lilly announced plans to bolster its domestic medicine production across therapeutic areas by building four new pharmaceutical manufacturing sites in the United States. The company recently announced its intended site in Virginia and plans to announce two remaining locations this year.

Lilly plans to use technologies including machine learning, AI, digitally integrated systems and advanced data analytics, and digital automation will be embedded throughout the site to streamline operations. To achieve this, the company will collaborate with local universities and invest in educational initiatives across Texas to build a strong pipeline of talent.