Mubadala Bio and Eli Lilly to Package Weight-Loss Drugs in Abu Dhabi
The Mubadala Investment Company subsidiary will run packaging and logistics for Eli Lilly's GLP-1 diabetes and obesity medicines from a 125,000-square-metre site in KEZAD.
Mubadala Bio will package and distribute Eli Lilly's GLP-1 medicines for diabetes and obesity inside the UAE under a strategic partnership the two companies announced at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit 2026.
The work will run from a 125,000-square-metre site in Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi, or KEZAD. Operations will be introduced in phases, with each stage subject to regulatory and quality approvals. Financial terms were not disclosed, and no implementation timeline was given.
The agreement covers Lilly's GLP-1 portfolio, the drug class that includes Mounjaro and Zepbound, two of the largest products in the diabetes and obesity market. Packaging and logistics sit at the end of the supply chain, after the active ingredient has been manufactured and the finished dose assembled elsewhere. Bringing that step into the UAE gives Mubadala Bio a role in handling medicines in the stretch before they reach pharmacies and patients.
A partner of unusual scale
Lilly was founded in 1876 and employs more than 51,000 people worldwide. It reported US$65.2 billion in revenue for 2025, and its market capitalisation stood at roughly US$1.13 trillion as of October 21, 2026.
The UAE has been an early market for the company's metabolic drugs. Mounjaro was introduced in August 2022, among the first launches anywhere. In April 2026 the country approved Foundayo (orforglipron), Lilly's oral weight-management treatment, becoming the second country globally to register it.
What the deal does for Mubadala Bio
Mubadala Bio was established in 2025 and is wholly owned by Mubadala Investment Company. The Lilly agreement supports its strategy of expanding domestic pharmaceutical capabilities rather than leaving the sector to imports.
The company ties the partnership to three goals: building what can be done inside the UAE, strengthening the security of medicine supply, and developing Abu Dhabi as an international life sciences hub. Packaging and logistics are the first component. Manufacturing is not part of the announced scope.
Supply security is the practical argument. A medicine that arrives fully finished and boxed from abroad leaves the country exposed to shipping delays, customs backlogs and currency swings. Handling final packaging locally does not remove that exposure, but it shifts one step of it inside the border and creates a domestic inventory buffer that can be topped up on a shorter cycle.
The deal also places a Mubadala subsidiary alongside one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world at a moment when demand for GLP-1 treatments is pressing on manufacturing capacity across the industry. Lilly has been adding production worldwide. A regional packaging node in Abu Dhabi gives it a local footprint without the commitment of a full plant. The arrangement is modest next to Lilly's global revenue base. Its weight lies in the regulatory and logistical groundwork it lays in a market that has moved faster than most to approve the company's newest products.
Several details remain open. The phased rollout depends on approvals that have not yet been granted, and neither side has said when the first phase is expected to begin.
