LILLY BLOOMS.

• Position: NC TREND: Statewide

Eli Lilly has been among the few U.S. pharmaceutical giants with relatively small operations in North Carolina. That's changing quickly.

The Indianapolis-based company is promising to add 1,100 staffers as it spends $1.5 billion in the state, including a $ 1 billion commitment at the Cabarrus County site where Philip Morris operated the world's biggest cigarette plant for 27 years. The Lilly plant is expected to employ about 600 people at five buildings over the next decade, joining a Durham operation under construction and slated to hire nearly 500 people, the company said in January 2020.

Less than two years ago, Lilly had about 135 employees in North Carolina, mostly salespeople, according to the N.C. Biotech Center.

Soon, the company will join Pfizer, Biogen, Novo Nordisk, Merck and other major pharma companies with big N.C. operations. Lilly has invested here before, buying Durham's Sphinx Pharmaceuticals for $76 million in 1994 but closing its Research Triangle Park site in 2005. It also closed its Elanco animal health plant in Greensboro several years ago.

But Lilly is now making a big push in North Carolina with executives citing the manufacturing technology experience of the area's labor force, its proximity to universities in the Triangle and Charlotte with strong science and technology programs and its access to major transportation networks.

It's a big win for Concord and Cabarrus County, where officials have worked for years to recover from the 2009 closing of the Philip Morris plant. The giant cigarette maker formerly paid an annual property tax of $7 million, then representing about 10% of Concord's base. Average salaries topped $60,000.

In 2014, the startup Alevo battery company said it planned a plant that would employ thousands. It cited backing of $ 1 billion from European investors. Then-Gov. Pat McCrory said, "This is going to be the greatest job announcement ever in North Carolina." But Alevo's technology didn't pan out, and the company was dismantled...