FILE PHOTO: The Eli Lilly logo is shown on one of the company's offices in San Diego, California, U.S., September 17, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Mariam Sunny

(Reuters) -Eli Lilly said on Monday it plans to build a new $3 billion manufacturing plant in the Netherlands to expand the production capacity for its keenly watched experimental weight-loss pill, orforglipron, and other oral medicines.

Lilly, the world's most valuable pharmaceutical company by market capitalization, has invested billions of dollars in recent months to scale up the production of orforglipron.

The company competes with Danish rival Novo Nordisk to launch the pill and solidify its lead in the rapidly expanding obesity treatment market.

Lilly said the Dutch facility will strengthen its global supply chain and expand the capacity for its growing portfolio of oral medications, mainly in cardiometabolic health and obesity, neuroscience, cancer treatment, as well as immunology.

Shares of the Indianapolis-based drugmaker were up 2.5% following the announcement.

The facility will be equipped with advanced technologies such as paperless manufacturing and AI-driven real-time analytics "to deliver medicines faster with higher quality and more reliably to people around the world," CEO David Ricks said.

Speaking at a press conference discussing the announcement, Ricks said the Netherlands was chosen for the site partly due to its proximity to the European Medicines Agency as well as the availability of skilled and multilingual workforce.

The plant, located in Leiden Bio Science Park in Katwijk, Netherlands, will create 500 skilled manufacturing jobs and about 1,500 construction roles, the company said. The construction is expected to start next year.

The announcement comes days after Lilly announced a more than $1.2 billion expansion of its site in Carolina, Puerto Rico, to boost orforglipron production as part of its U.S. manufacturing push.

Lilly has said it plans to announce two new U.S. manufacturing sites in the coming months.

The drugmaker's manufacturing footprint in Europe includes established sites in France, Ireland, Italy and Spain, as well as two facilities under construction in Ireland and Germany.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Shreya Biswas)