Eli Lilly (LLY) CEO Dave Ricks said Friday that the company will make its planned GLP-1 weight-loss pill in the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and his push to get companies to move production inside the country’s borders.
“We’re going to make this medicine here in the United States,” Ricks said in an interview on Fox Business Network (FOXA). “We’ll be proud to make this medicine at that site and ship it around the world from our country.”
The medicine he’s referring to is orforglipron, which Lilly announced Thursday met company goals in the first of several late-stage trials — helping patients with Type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar while causing weight loss. The results were comparable with other GLP-1 injections on the market, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro.
The results are pivotal: While the GLP-1 class of medications has become a blockbuster on the market (both for diabetes treatment and weight loss), they’re expensive, must be injected, and need to be kept refrigerated. A pill version would be a more convenient option that could be much more widely used.
By moving manufacturing to the U.S., Lilly could avoid some of the impacts of Trump’s erratic tariffs — currently a universal 10% tariff, while heavy reciprocal tariffs have primarily been paused. (A 145% levy on Chinese goods remains in place.) Lilly announced in February that it would spend almost $30 billion to build four domestic manufacturing plants.
Lilly expects to file for global regulatory approval of orforglipron for weight management by the end of the year and for Type 2 diabetes in 2026. The phama giant currently sells Zepbound and Mounjaro for diabetes and weight loss — both of which are administered by injection.
“We’re building inventory so that when we introduce [orforglipron] in 2026, we can do it globally — in all countries simultaneously, virtually, and at scale without the risk of shortage,” Ricks said on Fox.
The Lilly CEO said the company would like to work with the Trump administration on its GLP-1 drugs, mentioning Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda.
“We want to work with the administration and others who want to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and get these medicines to more patients,” he said. “It’s an invention from an American company, made here in America. What could be better?”
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