Short answer
The Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro had 13 pharmaceutical manufacturing establishments in 2023, with 7,509 employees and an average annual pay of $141,239 (Census County Business Patterns). Nine are in Marion County, with 7,309 of the jobs. Eli Lilly ($65.2 billion of 2025 revenue, about 50,000 employees) and Elanco Animal Health ($4.7 billion) are headquartered in Indianapolis, according to their 10-Ks. FDA's file lists 47 registered drug sites in the metro.
- All 13 of the metro's drug plants are in Marion and Hamilton counties.
- The metro has 54% of Indiana's drug manufacturing jobs (7,509 of 13,799).
- Lilly reported about 50,000 employees at the end of 2025, about 23,000 of them in the US by our subtraction.
- 14 of the metro's 47 FDA registrations only pack, label or relabel, mostly in Hendricks, Morgan and Boone counties.
- The metro also has 38 drug wholesale establishments with 4,834 employees.
On this page
This page is for people researching drug companies in and around Indianapolis: job seekers weighing Lilly against everyone else, suppliers and logistics partners, and sellers planning a central Indiana territory. It uses the Census Bureau's Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro, eleven counties from Boone and Hamilton to Johnson and Morgan.
Thirteen plants, 7,509 jobs
County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, NAICS 3254 (Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing), Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN Metro Area (CBSA 26900):
| Measure (2023) | Indianapolis metro |
|---|---|
| Establishments | 13 |
| Employees | 7,509 |
| Annual payroll | $1,060,567,000 |
| Average employees per establishment | 577.6 |
| Average annual pay | $141,239 |
| Share of US establishments | 0.45% of 2,901 |
| County | Establishments | Employees |
|---|---|---|
| Marion | 9 | 7,309 |
| Hamilton | 4 | 200 |
Three of the 13 establishments have 1 to 4 employees. The Census Bureau doesn't publish the other size classes for so small a group, and it doesn't publish any county with fewer than three establishments, but here the two counties already add up to 13. By product, 5 establishments make finished-dose pharmaceuticals (325412, 5,150 employees) and 4 make in-vitro diagnostic substances (325413), whose employee total is not reported (a high-noise figure: the Census Bureau's confidentiality noise moved it by 5% or more).
What the count doesn't include
CBP's unit is the establishment, one location with paid employees, so a company can appear several times; owners working without staff are excluded. Code 3254 covers manufacturing sites only. Lilly's head office and research labs, Elanco's headquarters and the region's distribution centers are each counted in their own industries. The same 2023 data shows 38 drug wholesale establishments (NAICS 424210) in the metro with 4,834 employees and 31 biotechnology R&D establishments (NAICS 541714) with 1,872. Statewide, Indiana had 35 drug plants and 13,799 jobs; the Indiana pharmaceutical market report covers Bloomington, Clinton and the rest of the state.
The companies headquartered here
| Company | Headquarters (10-K cover) | Revenue, 2025 | Employees reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eli Lilly and Company | Lilly Corporate Center, Indianapolis | $65,179 million | about 50,000, about 27,000 outside the US |
| Elanco Animal Health | 450 Elanco Circle, Indianapolis | $4,715 million | about 9,400 full-time, plus about 500 fixed-duration |
| MBX Biosciences | 11711 N. Meridian Street, Carmel | none (clinical-stage) | 63 full-time |
SEC EDGAR lists only these three listed drug companies in the metro. Lilly's 10-K says its principal domestic and international executive offices are in Indianapolis, that its major production sites include facilities in Indiana, and that its research facilities consist mainly of owned sites in Indiana plus leased sites in four other states. It reports about 12,000 people in research and development company-wide. Elanco's 10-K puts its R&D headquarters in Indianapolis and its largest plant in Clinton, Indiana, outside the metro.
The 47 registered sites
FDA publishes every registered drug establishment in its Drug Establishments Current Registration Site (DECRS). In the 30 October 2026 download, by our count, the metro's counties had 47 registrations:
| Type (our classification) | Registrations | Examples from the FDA file |
|---|---|---|
| Make finished drugs or active ingredients | 21 | Eli Lilly (one registration covering ingredients, manufacture, labels and packs), Novartis Manufacturing, POINT Biopharma, Exelead, Genezen Laboratories, Century Pharmaceuticals, Incog Biopharma Services (Fishers) |
| Pack, label or relabel only | 14 | Geodis Logistics and Life Science Logistics (Clayton), MD Logistics (Plainfield), Exel dba DHL Supply Chain (Mooresville, Whitestown), Quality Packaging Specialists International (Mooresville) |
| Medical gas | 7 | medical gas suppliers (our classification by firm name) |
| Testing only | 2 | Labcorp Early Development Laboratories (Greenfield), Eurofins Animal Health Testing |
| Other | 3 | a PET drug producer, an oxygen transfill site and a feed mill |
Several of the makers produce radiopharmaceuticals (Novartis, POINT Biopharma, Curium in Noblesville, Isotopia in Westfield and Orano Med in Brownsburg); Lilly's 10-K says it bought POINT in December 2023. The statewide report covers that cluster in more detail.
The packers are the local story. Hendricks County has 7 of the metro's registrations, Morgan County 6 and Boone County 3. Thirteen of those 16 are warehouses that pack, label or relabel drugs, along Interstates 70 and 65. Registration is a filing by the company, not a sign of FDA approval.
Working in the industry here
- Lilly first. With about 50,000 employees worldwide and its main offices, owned research sites and major production in Indiana, Lilly is the employer most job searches here start with.
- Then the specialists. Contract manufacturers (Exelead, Genezen, Incog), radiopharmaceutical makers and diagnostics manufacturers hire chemists, operators and quality staff.
- Then the warehouses. The Hendricks, Boone and Morgan county sites hire for GMP warehousing, labelling and packaging, usually through logistics companies rather than drugmakers.
BioCrossroads, the state's life sciences initiative, links to career programs including Career TraX and the Indiana Career Apprenticeship Pathway. For compliance history on any site, use FDA's Data Dashboard. The Indiana Board of Pharmacy licenses wholesale drug distributors (which need accreditation from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy) and third-party logistics providers, so ask a logistics partner for both.
Selling into central Indiana
| Account type | Examples (FDA file, 10-Ks) | Who to contact |
|---|---|---|
| Global headquarters | Lilly, Elanco | Category manager in global procurement, then the business owner |
| Plants and contract makers | Lilly's Indianapolis sites, Exelead, Genezen, Incog | Site engineering, quality, supply chain |
| Packagers and 3PLs | Geodis, Life Science Logistics, MD Logistics, DHL Supply Chain | General manager, operations director |
Worked example: an insulated packaging supplier
Illustrative example. The supplier and its prices are invented; the counts come from FDA's registration file.
Wabash Cold Pack (wabashcoldpack.example) makes insulated shippers and gel packs for temperature-controlled drugs.
- List the accounts. The 14 pack and relabel registrations plus the 2 Life Science Logistics sites registered to manufacture and relabel: 16 sites run by 11 companies.
- Qualify them. Ask each operations director what share of outbound volume ships at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius; cold-chain sites are the target.
- Do the arithmetic. If 5 sites qualify and 2 switch, each shipping 4,000 cold boxes a month at $9 a box, that's 2 x 4,000 x $9 x 12 = $864,000 a year.
Working out which warehouses handle cold-chain work is the slow part; Bebop researches each account and suggests the right contact.
For Lilly's place among its peers, see the largest pharmaceutical companies.
Next step: compare a metro built on a cluster of large plants in the Raleigh pharmaceutical market report.
Sources
- County Business Patterns (CBP), 2023, US Census Bureau, accessed 30 October 2026
- 2023 County Business Patterns datasets (metro, county and state files, NAICS 3254, 424210 and 541714), US Census Bureau, accessed 30 October 2026
- County Business Patterns methodology (publication rule and noise flags), US Census Bureau, accessed 30 October 2026
- Drug Establishments Current Registration Site (DECRS), US Food and Drug Administration, accessed 30 October 2026
- DECRS annual registration status download (drls_reg.zip), US Food and Drug Administration, accessed 30 October 2026
- Eli Lilly and Company Form 10-K for 2025, Eli Lilly and Company, via SEC EDGAR, filed 12 February 2026
- Elanco Animal Health Form 10-K for 2025, Elanco Animal Health Incorporated, via SEC EDGAR, filed 24 February 2026
- MBX Biosciences Form 10-K for 2025, MBX Biosciences, Inc., via SEC EDGAR, filed 12 March 2026
- Pharmacy licensing information, Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, Indiana Board of Pharmacy, accessed 30 October 2026
- BioCrossroads, BioCrossroads, accessed 30 October 2026
- FDA Data Dashboard, US Food and Drug Administration, accessed 30 October 2026
Written by the Bebop team at Blackpearl Group. Published .
Questions people ask
What pharmaceutical companies are in Indianapolis?
Eli Lilly and Elanco Animal Health are headquartered in Indianapolis, according to their 2025 10-Ks, and MBX Biosciences is in Carmel. FDA's registration file also lists Novartis Manufacturing, POINT Biopharma, Exelead, Genezen Laboratories and Century Pharmaceuticals in Indianapolis, Curium in Noblesville and Incog Biopharma Services in Fishers, plus packaging and logistics sites in Hendricks, Boone and Morgan counties.
How many pharmaceutical plants are in Indianapolis?
Census County Business Patterns counted 13 pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing establishments in the Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro in 2023: 9 in Marion County with 7,309 employees and 4 in Hamilton County with 200. FDA's drug registration file lists 47 registered sites in the metro, because it also counts packagers, testing labs and gas suppliers.
How many people does Eli Lilly employ?
Lilly's Form 10-K for 2025 says it employed approximately 50,000 people at the end of 2025, including approximately 27,000 outside the US, which leaves about 23,000 in the US by subtraction. About 12,000 worked in research and development. The 10-K doesn't give an Indianapolis headcount, but it says the company's principal executive offices and owned research facilities are in Indiana.
How much do pharmaceutical jobs pay in Indianapolis?
Drug manufacturing establishments in the Indianapolis metro paid $1.06 billion to 7,509 employees in 2023, an average of $141,239 a year, according to Census County Business Patterns. That average covers every job at those sites, from operators to managers. Headquarters, research and warehouse jobs, including Lilly's corporate and laboratory staff, are counted in other industries and pay differently.