Meet our new neighbor

Goochland officials "breaking ground

Bright blue skies blessed the official groundbreaking for the Eli Lilly facility in West Creek on October 22. Dirt has been moving on the site, which hosted soccer games until last year, for a while, but Lilly is just getting started.

The company is marking its 150^th anniversary. Go to https://www.lilly.com/about/history for an overview of our new neighbor.

Dignitaries including Governor Abigail Spanberger, US Trade Representative Ambassador Jameson Greer, Dave Ricks the CEO of Lilly, Eric Orocho site head for the facility, and Jonathan Christy, District 1 chair of Goochland’s Board of Supervisors used shovels painted in Lilly’s signature red to mark the start of something big. Last September, Lilly announced that it had chosen Goochland as the site for a $5 billion—with a b—advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.

Following a brief video about Lilly’s community outreach projects, Orocho explained that being a good neighbor is part of the company’s operating culture. People who work for Lilly are part of the community.  

“The Goochland site will be more than facilities, technology, and equipment but people who share values with the surrounding community. This is just the start of our  relationship with the community. That’s what I’m most excited about.”

Ricks thanked the many member of the Richmond team. He observed that while pharmaceutical science has changed  through  the years, breakthroughs only succeed when someone figured out how to make them at scale. He thanked all for the “partnership that got us here.”

The $5 billion facility is one of ten new manufacturing sites announced by Lilly since 2020 and one of five slated to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and finished medicines in a fully integrated facility with dedicated API capacity for large molecule and bioconjugate medicines in America. Ricks said that for decades APIs were produced overseas. Policies at all levels of government from local to federal made this  reshoring possible.

The Goochland facility is unique because it will bring the entire process in one place to provide greater control from the basic ingredients to the final medicines shipped to patients. “It will give us the confidence to say that every dose is of the highest quality.”

The West Creek facility will produce a new kind of cancer treatment, said Ricks, called antibody drug conjugates(ADC) designed to target cancer cells with greater precision, yielding more powerful treatments with potentially fewer side effects. “Lilly Richmond (Goochland) will help make sure these innovative treatments can reach the people who need it,” said Ricks.

The Governor thanked all who had a hand in bringing the Lilly investment to Virginia, including her predecessor Glenn Youngkin and his administration, for their hard work. She said that the Lilly investment was initially expected to be about half of $5 billion and opined that the increase indicates that Virginia is welcoming and provides a clear opportunity for Lilly to build and expand in the Commonwealth. Construction of the facility, whose operation will create 650 high paying jobs, is estimated to create 1,800 construction jobs.

Ready to move lots of dirt

Greer also commended all who brought the Goochland facility to fruition. He noted that in early 2025, Lilly made a commitment to invest $27 billion in American manufacturing. Greer said that the ADCs that will be made here are the realization of a more than a century long quest to create a “magic bullet” therapy so precise that it could travel through the human body, find a diseased cell, and destroy it while leaving the tissue around it untouched. “It was simply a dream until now and will be made here by American workers.”

Lilly’s substantial investment in American manufacturing represents a commitment to economic and national security well as to the workers who provide for their families and are the core of local communities.

Reshoring American manufacture of pharmaceuticals reverses our country’s decades long dependence on foreign suppliers which lead to the loss of capacities and technologies created here, said Greer.

The Goochland facility will combine a highly skilled workforce, advanced technologies, and specialized manufacturing to support a supply of safe, high-quality medicine. It will be built and operated to the highest standards for safety, quality and environmental stewardship. Lilly is committed to being a good neighbor in Goochland County and a trusted partner across Virginia. The site is targeting a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, demonstrating Lilly’s focus on sustainable performance as it expands advanced manufacturing in the U.S. 

Making advanced medicines in the U.S. requires a highly skilled workforce. Lilly is building that workforce in Virginia, offering long-term careers where people can grow close to home. Lilly has committed $40 million to support the Virginia Center for Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, a statewide network of industry, government, and higher education partners that will prepare Virginians for those careers. The network will include a pilot-scale, hands-on training center in Goochland County, with a targeted opening in 2028.

Christy said “Lilly’s groundbreaking marks a significant investment in Goochland County and an exciting step forward for our community. We proudly welcome Lilly and the opportunities this project will create for quality jobs, economic growth, and lifesaving innovation.”

Lilly is currently hiring in Richmond and expects the new facility to create 650 high-wage jobs like engineers, scientists, operations personnel, and lab technicians – along with approximately 1,800 construction jobs as the site is built and brought online. Visit the Lilly Richmond career page for open positions or join Lilly's talent community for future opportunities.