Eli Lilly plans to allocate $3 billion in China over the coming decade to establish production capacity for orforglipron, the company said in a statement posted on WeChat.
The drugmaker said it submitted a marketing application for orforglipron to China’s drug regulator at the end of 2025. Lilly describes the molecule as a once-daily oral non-peptide GLP-1 agonist that has shown clinically meaningful weight-loss results in late-stage testing.
At the highest dose in a late-stage trial, orforglipron produced an average weight reduction of 12.4% over 72 weeks in overweight adults without diabetes, the company said. In an additional study, the oral candidate supported maintenance of weight loss for patients who switched from Lilly’s GLP-1 injection, marketed in the U.S. as Zepbound, and from Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.
As part of the announcement, Lilly said it intends to put in place a localized manufacturing and supply chain for oral solid dosage forms in China. The stated objective is to build production capability onshore to support potential local demand for the oral therapy.
In noting its China investment plans, Lilly joined other Western healthcare companies that have recently signaled additional manufacturing commitments in the market. The company referenced that firms such as Haleon (LON:HLN) and AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) made manufacturing investment announcements earlier this year.
The timing of Lilly’s disclosure precedes a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping scheduled for this month, the company noted.
Operationally, the plan combines a regulatory push with a parallel manufacturing program: submission of a marketing application for a novel oral GLP-1 agent and a multi-year capital commitment to establish domestic production of oral solid doses. Both elements are central to Lilly’s statement, which was published on WeChat.
Details beyond the application filing and the commitment to build a localized supply system were not provided in the statement.