Eli Lilly Breaks Ground on $6.5B Houston Plant for Oral GLP-1 Drug Foundayo

Eli Lilly broke ground Monday on a $6.5 billion manufacturing facility in Houston, its fifth U.S. active pharmaceutical ingredient site and one of ten domestic plants announced since 2020. The roughly 240-acre Generation Park site will produce active ingredients for Foundayo (orforglipron), Lilly's oral GLP-1 weight-management drug, plus other small-molecule medicines and oligonucleotides. The facility is expected to be operational by 2030, employing more than 600 people alongside about 4,000 construction jobs. The groundbreaking is part of Lilly's $50 billion commitment to reshoring medicine production. In February 2025, the company pledged an extra $27 billion for four new plants, including Houston. Foundayo, approved by the FDA and launched in the U.S. in April, generated $98 million in second-quarter revenue, its first three months of sales. CEO David Ricks said the drug now accounts for one-third of new GLP-1 pill prescriptions.