Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals(Permission vist), Basingstoke, March 2011

In 1934 Eli Lilly and Company established its first office outside the USA at 2-4 Dean Street in Central London. At the time Eli Lilly was one of America’s largest suppliers of medicines, but its export business was in the hands of local agents.

The Dean Street office was one further step towards internationalisation and was followed within two years by a decision to build a manufacturing plant in the UK.

It is not recorded why Lilly chose Basingstoke for its manufacturing site, but the reasons are not hard to guess. High on the list of priorities must have been the sophisticated railway link-ups which put Basingstoke in touch with the whole country. The original factory was built facing the main railway line and overlooking Lilly’s own private siding, by the side of which was built a coal fired boiler house. Easy accessibility to London, the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the country, and to the port of Southampton, through which supplies and people from America could come, must also have been an important consideration. Finally not the least attractive feature must have been the availability of building land.​

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