Eli Lilly and Company announced completion of a $90 million expansion of its Biotechnology Center in San Diego, California. The new space will help foster and accelerate the discovery of medicines within the company's core therapeutic areas of immunology, diabetes, oncology and neurodegeneration, as well as the emerging area of pain.
"This year we announced a commitment to invest $850 million in our U.S. operations based on our potential for growth and the company's long-standing investment in the U.S. market," said David A. Ricks, Lilly's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Today, as part of that commitment, we are pleased to say our research footprint in San Diego has been expanded."
The center features a laboratory and an additional 180,000 square feet of working space, which is an increase of 145 percent compared to the former facility. The new space allows for closer partnership between Lilly experts in biotechnology, discovery chemistry and research technologies while also fostering external collaborations. The new facility will allow researchers across to remotely design, synthesize and screen investigational molecules.
In 2004 Lilly acquired Applied Molecular Evolution before establishing the Lilly San Diego Biotechnology Center in 2009, located near the University of California, San Diego. Since its establishment, the center has created more than 100 jobs with more than 200 scientists currently working in various research activities.
Nearly $250 million of Lilly's $850 million capital investments will be dedicated to supporting its research and development centers around the U.S., including the center in San Diego, in 2017. Lilly's other U.S. research centers are located in Indianapolis, Indiana; Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 2017, Lilly plans to spend approximately $5 billion on global R&D, nearly $4 billion of which will be invested in U.S. based programs.