{"id":141805,"date":"2026-03-18T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/141805\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:58:08","slug":"how-did-the-lehigh-valley-land-the-eli-lilly-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/141805\/","title":{"rendered":"How did the Lehigh Valley land the Eli Lilly deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A person who recommends sites for multinational corporations put Eli Lilly and Co.\u2019s choice of the Lehigh Valley<\/a> in perspective Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly one site, only one place, survives the processing of thousands,\u201d said Jay Biggins, executive managing director of Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. \u201cThe process involves analysis from the start. \u2026 It requires cooperation. It involves high emotion. There\u2019s a lot of trust involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basically, once you announce a $3.5 billion investment into a community, it\u2019s very, very difficult to take it back, he said. It was impressive how much everyone in the Lehigh Valley \u201cwas on the same page.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never seen a problem,\u201d Biggins said, \u201cwhich is really amazing when you think of all the moving parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.\u2019s annual meeting at the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem was a continuation of the celebration from Lilly\u2019s announcement Jan. 31 that it will build a nearly 800,000-square-foot complex in Upper Macungie Township that will employ 850 people to manufacture weight-loss drugs.<\/p>\n

Construction is expected to begin this year and wrap up in 2031. It was pointed out more than once during the event that Lilly\u2019s investment is the largest economic development project in Lehigh Valley history and the largest life sciences investment in Pennsylvania history.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro, making yet another visit to the Lehigh Valley, gave the keynote address, while Lilly\u2019s senior vice president of global parenteral network expansion, Daniel VonDielingen, presented more information on the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we looked at this area, we felt that we would be able to have a workforce that could operate in an innovative environment,\u201d VonDielingen said, noting a $5 million state investment to turn Lehigh Carbon Community College into a talent pipeline<\/a> for Lilly.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifty percent of the jobs [come from such a program] and it could be higher here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done this in North Carolina. With that [LCCC] certificate, you can have an entry point into our site.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said 90% of the hires will be local.<\/p>\n

VonDielingen gave an overview of what will be in the plant that will manufacture Zepbound and eventually Retatrutide, a next-generation medicine currently in clinical trials.<\/p>\n

He said the plant will feature \u201csmart manufacturing\u201d that includes fully automated warehouses with automated guided vehicles and advanced robotics to ensure 100% visual inspection of medicines.<\/p>\n

VonDielingen joined a panel discussion with Biggins, LVEDC President and CEO Don Cunningham and state Chief Transformation and Opportunity Officer Ben Kirshner.<\/p>\n

Cunningham said the site was \u201cplanned well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFormal plans have not been submitted to the township for the project, but the property has been zoned industrial with an eye for a pharmaceutical company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Upper Macungie Planning Commission agenda for Wednesday night\u2019s meeting includes Lilly\u2019s plans for the site, just west of Fogelsville between Interstate 78 and Old Route 22.<\/p>\n

In his address, Shapiro said one of his economic goals was to attract life science companies to the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI announced that plan more than two years ago<\/a> \u2014 half a mile away from here at OraSure\u2019s facility in Bethlehem,\u201d he said. \u201cIn that plan, we put a point of emphasis on life sciences as one of our five pillars of opportunity for the future, because life sciences is an industry where we are poised for explosive innovation and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A person who recommends sites for multinational corporations put Eli Lilly and Co.\u2019s choice of the Lehigh Valley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,60,434,28,432],"class_list":["post-141805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}