Ever Wonder What Running A $50B Capital Facilities Project Feels Like?

A conversation with Victor Cruz, Eli Lilly & Company

Eli Lilly and Company’s current U.S. manufacturing expansion, both ongoing and planned, is stretching the definition of full-scale capital investment in pharma. With an agenda exceeding $50 billion and a sprawling portfolio of at least 12 new greenfield projects, the company is writing a new playbook for building a global supply chain.

Building big is rarely simple, especially when site selection includes communities unfamiliar with large-scale industrial development. In regions like Goochland County, Virginia, and the LEAP District in Lebanon, Indiana, Lilly is standing up mega sites in areas that have historically lacked the massive utility and specialized labor infrastructure required for high-tech GMP manufacturing.

For Lilly’s leadership, challenges lie in the complex logistics of capital delivery, the philosophy of "smart replication," and the race to ensure facilities are flexible enough to handle the next generation of therapies.

Victor Cruz, senior vice president of corporate engineering and global health, safety, and environmental at Eli Lilly, spoke about the organization’s expansive capital projects during the recent 2026 ISPE Facilities of the Future Conference in San Diego and offered to share a few highlights with us about the headwinds and tailwinds at play.

Eli Lilly and Company's capital projects portfolio contains a mix of both established and greenfield sites. What was the site selection strategy for picking those areas?

Cruz: At Lilly, we build manufacturing sites for the long term so people can have great careers with us. Our site selection process is very comprehensive, and it considers several elements needed not only for the expedited construction of a new site, but also for its long-term operation. We complete our assessments in collaboration with local agencies, the community, and economic development teams. 

Key areas that are important for our site selection include:

• Employment/labor: existing construction workforce and manufacturing talent. Academia programs conferring degrees in STEM and manufacturing-related fields.
• Location/real estate attributes: Sites of appropriate size, location, and zoning. Utility infrastructure and accessibility. Attractiveness to external talent (i.e., quality of life).
• Costs: labor, utilities, taxes, cost of operations, and cost of living for employees
• Ease of doing business: expedited permitting, government incentives
• Logistics: ecosystem established for the life sciences industry

In addition to all these elements, for us it is important to connect early with the community to make sure they understand our mission, and that our values as a company are aligned with their own mission and values. These investments have a significant impact on the community. The direct jobs created are high-paying jobs that can have a life-changing impact. In addition, a multiplier effect will drive indirect jobs creation as the ecosystem is created.

What were some of the challenges in accessing utilities like water, broadband, electricity, and waste stream control at those sites? 

Cruz: When building a greenfield site, utilities infrastructure is one of the most important elements in the selection, especially if the site is being built with speed. One of the main challenges is the proximity and capacity of key utilities; that will ultimately define the cost and schedule to get them ready and available to satisfy the different phases of the project.

Distance to high-voltage transmission lines, the capacity of existing waste treatment facilities, gas supply, and — in some cases — railway infrastructure to bring raw materials are some of the main challenges that can define the suitability of the location to be selected. These challenges are more evident when trying to build a greenfield site in a rural area or farther away from an existing industrial complex. A close collaboration between state economic development teams, utility providers, and permitting agencies is crucial to ensure these obstacles are overcome.

Have you been able to achieve any copy/paste efficiencies despite the unique attributes of each project? How would you coach another company executing multiple large-scale projects, running concurrently, to exploit economies of scale?

Cruz: When building multiple sites in parallel, replication is a must and a key strategy to control cost and enable speed. When building parenteral manufacturing sites that will use the same technology, we follow a more aggressive replication strategy, starting with ordering identical equipment in bulk. This helps OEMs with providing the certainty they need to invest in their own capabilities and capacity to deliver equipment at record speed.

On the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) sites, we maximize replication of basic and detailed design across sites sharing the same technology or platform (small molecule, MAb, etc.). Replication not only enables a faster design phase of the project, but it will also cut significantly commissioning and qualification efforts, opening the door to maximize innovative approaches and tools like “digital twins” to accelerate testing.

This philosophy of maximizing replication is defined early in the project, setting an expectation within the project team, operations, and engineering firms. Now, although the value of replication is evident, smart replication is the way to go. What I mean by this is that sometimes significant improvements to the design are identified when starting up the original facility. On those cases it makes more sense to ensure the design of the next one includes those improvements, even if it means a lower percentage of replication or design rework.

Have factors like competition and scarcity limited your access to critical materials, from steel and equipment (e.g., bioreactors) to fill-finish lines?  

Cruz: We have established a very diverse suppliers’ network and delivery strategy. We also have selected different locations where our facilities are being built to enable access to different supply chains, services, and labor. We maximize off-site construction as much as possible, reducing strain on labor and material availability.

For parenteral equipment, we place orders in bulk very early in the project to allow OEMs to properly plan and source the equipment and materials they need with enough time, keeping this equipment off the critical path of the project. Our project teams provide oversight not only to OEMs’ performance, but we also help them remove any roadblocks they could have with their own supply chains. The procurement group is always looking for ways to ensure we have the needed access to materials, labor, and services. This is a strategy defined early during the project planning phase. This early planning is even more critical for big API facilities, which are more material- and labor-intensive.

When designing a manufacturing facility, especially for future parenterals, how do you approach flexibility to prevent tech and infrastructure lock-in? 

Cruz: We build our facilities with the latest available technology at the time. In addition, our facilities are built with flexibility in mind in terms of options for expansion, if needed. This flexibility in the design will allow us to effectively recapitalize our facilities without impacting our capacity. Our manufacturing facilities are built to serve a rich product pipeline and not one product, ensuring fungibility of assets that can adapt to future products and variable demand.

But innovation never stops. As we deliver the assets today, we also have team of subject matter experts working on what is next. Our “technical agendas” are defined even before delivering the assets. These agendas provide the roadmap to continue improving and modernizing our manufacturing facilities, ensuring they remain up-to-date with the latest trends in technology and regulatory expectations.

About The Expert:

Victor Cruz is the senior vice president of corporate engineering and global health, safety, and environmental at Eli Lilly and Company. He joined Lilly in 2001 as an automation engineer. Since then, he's held roles of increasing responsibility, including automation manager, site head, and vice president of biopharmaceutical operations. Before Lilly, he held posts at St. Jude Medical in Puerto Rico, Procter & Gamble, and Honeywell. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez.