Medicines, Eli Lilly's anti-diabetes brings Florence to the top in exports
The push of the molecule Tirzepatide was decisive
by Luca Orlando
3' min read
3' min read
From 7% of national drug exports to almost a quarter of the total. Florence's exploit propels the Tuscan capital to the top among the districts: a powerful thrust, also capable of moving the country's statistics. In fact, data for the first six months of 2025 see the province's foreign pharmaceutical sales jump to 8.4 billion euros, more than double the figure for the same period in 2024.
A path started in 2024, with quarterly exports rising between October and December to 2.8 billion, more than double the performance in the first three months of the year. A leap forward that has propelled Florence forward in the ranking of drug districts. In fifth place in 2022 and 2023, Florence had already moved up to second place last year, behind only Latina, and then excelled widely now, with an export value for the first half of the year that already exceeds the area's performance for the whole of 2024.
Decisive was the start-up in Sesto Fiorentino by the US giant Eli Lilly of the production of Tirzepatide, a molecule used in two different brand declinations that in the pharmaceutical group's global numbers represents the main driving force behind the business, which rose in the second quarter of 2025 by 38% to $15.5 billion. The anti-diabetes version Mounjaro develops a good 5.2 billion in this period (almost double the figures for the same period in 2024), and another 3.4 billion (three times as much a year later) is derived from its anti-obesity version Zepbound, drugs that also exceed $500 a packet, enough for one month's treatment.
The production capacity of Sesto Fiorentino, 1540 employees, which has risen by 35% in five years, has recently been expanded precisely to make this drug, and the investment plan announced two years ago, 750 million euro, is also linked to this development, through the launch of new production lines."Investments that will be fully finalised by the end of the year," explains President and CEO of Lilly Italia hub Elias Khalil, "not least because it is certainly not a matter of extemporaneous growth, taking into account a global demand for these products that is expected to triple in the coming years.
Punctual data on the pieces produced is not provided by the company, but taking into account the unit price on the market, hundreds of dollars per single pack, it is reasonable to assume that this is where the surge in local exports comes from. The quarterly trend of provincial foreign sales in fact moves in parallel with the expansion of Sesto Fiorentino: 774 million at the beginning of 2023, rising to 1.3 billion in the first months of the following year. Which in the fourth quarter sees values rise to 2.8 billion, and then rise again in the first six months of 2025. Exports from Florence go mainly to the United States, France and Spain, three countries that alone absorb over five billion in exports in the first six months of the year.
