Celltrion on January 02, 2026, announced that it has completed the transfer of the biopharmaceutical production facility of Eli Lilly that’s located in Branchburg, New Jersey, and is now entering full-scale contract manufacturing operations – CMO when it comes to large-scale pharmaceuticals.
Due to the completion of this U.S. production facility acquisition, Celltrion now looks to secure a local production base within the U.S. in order to reduce tariffs and, along with it, supply chain risks while at the same time also launching its full-scale contract manufacturing operations business in earnest, which, as per the company, is a mid-to-long-term growth engine.
The company went on to complete the transfer of the biopharmaceutical production facility of Lilly located in Branchburg, New Jersey, on December 31, 2025. Apparently, this acquisition was completed almost five months post being selected as a preferred negotiating partner in late July 2025, with the main contract inked in September 2025 and the corporate merger reviews completed in both Ireland and the U.S. across October and November 2025.
Celltrion went ahead and explained that by way of this acquisition, rather than building a new factory, the company went on to shorten the timeframe in terms of securing a global production base by acquiring an already functional production facility that goes on to meet the current Good Manufacturing Practice – cGMP benchmarks. The company anticipates that this is going to structurally free them from tariff risks within the U.S. and give them the effect of mitigating geopolitical uncertainties by way of diversification of the production bases.
It is well to be noted that the acquired production facility is a large-scale campus that consists of four buildings – production facilities, technical support buildings, logistics warehouses, and also operational buildings on almost 45,000 pyeong of land. It is also capable of producing around 66,000 liters of drug substance – DS per year. Celltrion looks forward to making an additional investment of around 700 billion won, which is equivalent to approx. $486 million, in order to expand production capacity to 132,000 liters.
The company has also secured a biopharmaceutical CMO contract with a total of $473 million from Lilly. This goes on to represent 19.08% of the consolidated revenue of Celltrion in 2025, which amounted to 3.557 trillion won, and comprises 462.53% as compared to the separate revenue of the U.S. in 2025, which stood at 146.7 billion won. Interestingly, the contract period is for three years and can very well be extended to a maximum of four years, but that depends on the various scenarios. Celltrion goes on to believe that even excluding the facility operating costs, the company can go on to recover the $330 million invested within the production facility acquisition in several years by way of CMO revenue alone.
Notably, this contract is a pharmaceutical contract manufacturing agreement having a contract period from December 31, 2025, to December 31, 2029. Stated Celltrion. Apparently this contract corresponds to a prominent management matter of their subsidiary, so they have announced it as a voluntary disclosure and did not disclose any specific details like product names because of contractual confidentiality clauses.
The strategy of Celltrion is to enhance both supply chain stability and profitability. Based upon the U.S. production facility, Celltrion looks forward to expanding its influence within the United States, which, by the way, is the largest pharmaceutical market in the world, at a fast pace.
The company anticipates lowering the costs via direct local production and also decreasing the logistics expenses. As a matter of fact, the company has gone on to enter the commercial production preparation process when it comes to its own products for sale within the U.S. market. Accordingly, the production and also revenue are anticipated to occur without any gaps at the U.S. production facility. The immediate rollout of the skilled local personnel by way of employment succession is also regarded to be an advantage.
Based upon this very foundation, Celltrion looks to proactively respond to the demand when it comes to its own products while at the same time also actively developing CDMO business, which targets global pharmaceutical companies. Celltrion, along with its U.S. subsidiary Celltrion USA, is going to handle facility investment as well as production infrastructure construction, whereas Celltrion BioSolutions is going to perform the global sales along with business coordination roles.
Meanwhile, Celltrion is forecasted to record its largest-ever performance in 2025 with a yearly revenue of 4 trillion 116.3 billion won and also an operating profit amounting to 1.165 trillion won.
One of the Celltrion representatives remarked that because of the recent passage of the U.S. Biosecure Act, the demand for local CMO – contract manufacturing coming from global biotechnology companies is anticipated to surge at a significant pace and that they are going to do their best to leap forward to being a global big pharma through entering expansion procedures and also strengthening their production capabilities in a major way.
