– by Klaus Lauer and Ludwig Burger and Andreas Rinke
Berlin (Reuters) – US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly wants to invest around 2.3 billion euros in a new factory in Alzey, Rhineland-Palatinate. The high-tech factory is scheduled to go into operation in 2027 and produce injectable medications to meet the growing demand for new diabetes drugs such as Mounjaro, as the company explained on Friday in Berlin. With the necessary approval in the EU, Mounjaro should then also be used here as a weight loss injection against obesity. Up to 1,000 jobs for highly qualified specialists are to be created permanently, and 1,900 jobs will be created during construction from 2024. In contrast to other large projects by chip manufacturers in East Germany, for example, Lilly operates without public subsidies and therefore without German tax money, said Economics Minister Robert Habeck. He spoke of good news for the location. “This investment encourages the federal government in its efforts to make Germany more attractive as a pharmaceutical location again,” emphasized Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.
The US company, which has been present in Germany since 1960, already employs around 1,000 people in Germany, primarily in Bad Homburg, Hesse. Lilly’s corporate headquarters is in Indianapolis, Indiana. With a market value of around $560 billion, Lilly is the most valuable listed healthcare company in the world. It was said that the investment decision for Germany and Alzey was made due to the infrastructure and very well-trained specialists. Lilly also plans to invest up to $100 million in the start-up ecosystem of Germany’s life science and biotech industry.
Lilly’s hopeful Mounjaro is approved as a diabetes treatment in the USA and Europe. The pharmaceutical company has also received approval for the product as a weight-loss injection from the US Food and Drug Administration in the USA. This is sold under the name Zepbound and is a competing product to Wegovy from the Danish company Novo Nordisk. In the EU, the expanded use of Mounjaro against morbid overweight (obesity) was recommended by the regulator for approval by the EU Commission. But this is still pending. The market is considered extremely lucrative.
Habeck explained that the settlement creates new and sustainable jobs “and shows the trust that companies have in the attractiveness of our pharmaceutical and industrial location.” Lauterbach announced that the government would further improve the framework conditions for research and production. “In this way, we ensure patients quick access to new therapy options and make ourselves more independent of fragile supply chains.” When asked whether there were considerations that statutory health insurance companies in Germany could reimburse weight-loss medications in the future, unlike before, Lauterbach said: “We haven’t looked into that at the moment.”
PHARMA CLUSTER RHINELAND-PALatinate
The Association of Research-Based Drug Manufacturers explained that every euro of pharmaceutical production creates another two euros of added value in other areas. “Every pharmaceutical job creates more than twice as many additional upstream and downstream jobs,” said association President Han Steutel. Meanwhile, with the billion-dollar investment, Rhineland-Palatinate is strengthening its importance as a biotech and pharmaceutical cluster in Germany with companies such as Biontech in Mainz or Boehringer in Ingelheim. The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer (SPD), spoke of a great success for her federal state. The mayor of Alzey, Steffen Jung, is hoping for tailwind for local companies. “Lilly is the hoped-for ‘lighthouse settlement'”. Other recent investments in Germany, including chip factories by Intel (US) and TSMC (Taiwan), were won on the promise of massive public subsidies.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly emphasized that the federal government wants to improve the opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to use anonymized patient data. A new pharmaceutical research law is planned for this purpose. A pharmaceutical summit with Chancellor Scholz and representatives from the industry is also scheduled to take place this year.
(Additional reporter: Rene Wagner, edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] (for companies and markets). )