AstraZeneca to locate pharma plant in Albemarle

Pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly & Co. are planning to locate major manufacturing facilities in Albemarle and Goochland counties respectively, a state official has confirmed.

Last week, the state Major Employer Investment Project Approval Commission (MEI) unanimously voted to recommend that the General Assembly approve state incentives packages valued at more than $10 million apiece for AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly.

While the specifics were not discussed during open session, it was publicly stated that the incentives were for manufacturing projects that would bring jobs and capital investments to the state.

A state official confirmed to Virginia Business that AstraZeneca has proposed a project for Albemarle County and that Eli Lilly has proposed a site in Goochland County. However, the source did not provide more specifics and stressed that the incentives packages still require approval from the General Assembly.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in July that AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical manufacturer and biotech company, was building a multibillion-dollar facility to produce pharmaceutical substances for AstraZeneca’s weight management and metabolic portfolio, including oral GLP-1, baxdrostat, oral PCSK9 and combination small molecule products.

Described as AstraZeneca’s largest single manufacturing investment globally, the Virginia plant is part of $50 billion in investments AztraZeneca plans to make in the United States by 2030 for manufacturing and research and development.

At the time, AstraZeneca representatives said that the exact location and size of the Virginia facility hadn’t been determined, but that the plant would employ “hundreds” of workers, and is expected to be operational by 2030. No other specifics have been released.

“[I’m] just absolutely thrilled to see the news that AstraZeneca is coming here,” said former AstraZeneca executive Mark Esser, leader of the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Virginia. “Obviously, many friends and colleagues [work] there, so I look forward to welcoming them to Albemarle County and having them visit the University of Virginia.”

Meanwhile, Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co. announced in February that it plans to bolster medicine production by building four new pharmaceutical manufacturing sites in the United States. The move brings the company’s total U.S. capital expansion commitments to more than $50 billion since 2020.

The company stated that three of the sites will focus on manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients and strengthening the supply chain. At the same time, the fourth will expand the company’s global parenteral manufacturing network for future injectable therapies. The company did not specify the locations of these four sites, but stated that the facilities would collectively create more than 3,000 jobs.

Eli Lilly would not confirm its choice to locate in Goochland, with a spokesperson issuing this statement: “Lilly is actively evaluating manufacturing site locations throughout the U.S. to expand capacity to meet the growing demand for our current and future pipeline medicines across multiple therapeutic areas. Any future decisions will be shared at the appropriate time.”

AstraZeneca and Albemarle and Goochland county officials did not immediately return requests for comment.

Esser said he didn’t have all the details as to why AstraZeneca chose Albemarle, adding that he first heard about the project’s location from news reports. However, likely factors in the site location decision, he said, were the county’s proximity to U.Va. and its researchers, engineers, and physicians.

“It has a strong scientific base here of talent from engineers and scientists and other biomedical researchers that are ideal for these sort of facilities,” he said. “I think commercially, it’s an entrepreneurial environment here. There’s a lot of growth. And I think support from the state is a huge part of it, too.”

He said he hopes to foster partnerships and research collaborations between the Manning Institute and AstraZeneca, and said AstraZeneca could provide learning and workforce development opportunities for U.Va. students. He views the company’s potential investment in Albemarle as a significant development for Central Virginia that will put the Charlottesville region “on the map” as a major pharma hub.

“I think there’s a strong talent pipeline here in Virginia that, in my opinion, has somewhat been untapped by the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.

Headquartered in Cambridge, England, AstraZeneca is an S&P Global 100 company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines in oncology, rare diseases and biopharmaceuticals, including cardiovascular, renal, metabolism, respiratory and immunology. Its largest market is the U.S., home to 19 of the company’s R&D, manufacturing and commercial sites. AstraZeneca employs about 90,000 workers worldwide, including more than 18,000 in the United States. It reported 2024 revenue of $54.073 billion.

An S&P 100 company, Eli Lilly has manufacturing plants in 9 countries and products marketed in approximately 95 countries. The company employs about 49,000 people worldwide and posted $45.04 billion in revenue last year.