Medical company Eli Lilly said Tuesday around $5 billon will be go toward construction of its new facility in Virginia just west of Richmond.

"By expanding our domestic capacity, we're building a secure, resilient supply chain that delivers for patients today and supports the breakthrough medicines of tomorrow," Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks (pictured April 2024 in Alzey, Germany) said Tuesday on the company's new Virginia medical production facility. Photo By Ronald Wittek/EPA UPI

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Medical company Eli Lilly said Tuesday around $5 billon will be go toward construction of its new facility in Virginia just west of Richmond.

The Indiana-based Eli Lilly said its new Goochland County manufacturing facility will boost the production of targeted cancer drugs and other medical treatment.

"By expanding our domestic capacity, we're building a secure, resilient supply chain that delivers for patients today and supports the breakthrough medicines of tomorrow," company chair and CEO David A. Ricks said in a statement.

Lilly's Virginia investment, Ricks stated, underscored the company's "commitment to U.S. innovation and manufacturing," which he said included creating high-quality jobs, strengthening local communities while "advancing the health and well-being of Americans nationwide."

The company said the Virginia facility will develop the active ingredients for cancer, autoimmune drugs and other advanced medical treatments.

In February, Lilly announced a $27 billion investment in domestic U.S. manufacturing for four newer plants with the three remaining sites to be revealed this year and production to begin within a five-year time window.

On Tuesday, the company said its Virginia site will create more than 650 new jobs in engineering science, operations and lab tech along with around 1,800 construction jobs.

Eli has other U.S. sites in Wisconsin and North Carolina and revealed in June it will buy out Boston-based Verve Therapeutics Inc. in a billion dollar deal to advance Verve's new line of experimental cardiac health drugs.

It comes on top of its prior $23 billion investment in the United States since 2020 and is the first in a series of pending investments by the U.S. drugmaker.

Ricks has in the past highlighted U.S. President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as the vehicle that pushed Eli to up its American investments, and indicated Eli Lilly will shift some of its European-based production to the Virginia.

"This is new capacity to allow for pipeline growth," he told CNBC, adding that his company has got "a number of new assets coming that will use both biologics but also these antibody drug conjugates."

"This site will be unique in that we'll be able to make that kind of medicine for us -- we don't currently have that capacity in the company -- and even put it in the drug product form, so into the vial and ship it," Ricks added.