Almost two years since Eli Lilly’s groundbreaking of its state-of-the-art Concord manufacturing facility, the company anticipates making its first medicines on-site by the end of the year.
“We expect to be able to make these medicines available for shipment sometime in 2025,” Rosa Manso Herranz, associate vice president, site head of Lilly Concord, told the paper in a recent interview held inside one of the company’s so-called tent villages. “And then over time, the site will be able to ramp up with the rest of the different activities, to make medicines available for our patients.”
The medications that will be produced will deal directly with things like diabetes and obesity, Herranz said, noting that all the investments will support “existing products and future products that Lilly has in its robust pipeline.”
Once fully built out, the site will span more than one million square feet across several buildings. It will include manufacturing, logistics and packaging, a quality control lab, and a central utilities plant. Lilly has purchased just over 400 acres of land at the old Philip Morris site for the location.
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Of the roughly 350 people who have been hired thus far, around 60 percent are from the local area, Herranz said. The pharmaceutical manufacturing facility is set to provide 600 new jobs.
“We are very intentional on having a diverse workforce and we are finding that in the area,” Herranz said, noting the company is going through a “really accelerated recruitment plan.” The company is hiring in various roles, including scientists, manufacturing operations, quality professionals and engineers.
Eli Lilly projects to invest around $2 billion to create the manufacturing site, a significant increase from the $1 billion that was announced as part of the June 2022 groundbreaking.
Once up and running, the site will have “automation integrated into nearly every facet of the supply chain,” Herranz said, similar to its sister manufacturing facility in the Research Triangle Park.
Eli Lilly employees, several of whom have relocated to Cabarrus County from the company’s headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana, have spent much of the past two years integrating themselves within the community, including forming relationships with the public school systems and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. The company is utilizing RCCC’s programs to help train its employees regarding CPR and OSHA protocols.
As part of Eli Lilly’s Global Day of Service in September, employees worked with Cabarrus County Schools’ Grounds and Facilities & Maintenance Department to spread mulch and plant trees at several schools across the district, while last week employees donated glasses for students at Harold E. Winkler Middle School to safely view the partial solar eclipse.
“The welcoming (from the community) has been outstanding,” Herranz said. “The support and the partnerships have been fantastic.”
A large portion of the employees are currently stationed inside the company’s white tents, where they are testing the equipment and systems before the facility is fully built out.
“Making medicine is complex, so establishing this site, it is going to take time and it takes a lot of high-skilled people to put in place all the processes,” Herranz said. “We want to go fast and we want to accelerate, but safety and quality are first. So we need to make sure that before we start making medicine, we do all the tests that are needed.”
In addition to prioritizing safety, Eli Lilly also wants the site to be environmentally sustainable, Herranz said, noting the company is targeting the facility to be LEED-certified. Solar panels will also be installed, which will supply 15 percent of the site’s energy.
“As we design a new site, we want to be intentional from a sustainability perspective and do it the right way,” she said.
Zooming out beyond Cabarrus County and even North Carolina, the medicines that will be produced at the Concord facility will be shipped to people across not just the United States but around the world.
“I think we have a tremendous opportunity to improve the health of the world,” Herranz said. “As a person living in Concord, I would be proud to know that that is happening here.”