In recent years, spurred by President Trump’s threats of tariffs, many leading pharmaceutical companies have pledged to invest billions in new factories across the United States. Cutting-edge facilities are currently being built in major industry hubs like North Carolina, destined to produce high-value, blockbuster medications.
However, this ambitious vision for American drug manufacturing largely overlooks generic medicines, which incredibly make up 90 percent of all prescriptions in the country.
For generic drug production, the scene in Shreveport, Louisiana, is far more typical than that of bustling construction sites. A factory there shut its doors in March, its workers gone, and the machines that once churned out millions of tablets daily now stand silent.
For over four decades, this factory produced generic drugs that are household staples in American medicine cabinets, including pain relievers like ibuprofen, aspirin, and Tylenol, as well as treatments for burns and allergies.
The factory’s owners have been trying to sell it for years, but no buyer has emerged—even amidst Mr. Trump’s persistent calls for drug manufacturing to return to the United States.
This plant vividly illustrates the decades-long decline of generic drug manufacturing in the U.S. and the harsh economic realities that make a domestic revival so challenging.
Financial records indicate that the Shreveport plant had been losing millions of dollars annually for its long-term owner, the Indian drugmaker Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. Like many other generic drug manufacturers, Dr. Reddy’s primarily conducts its production in India, where operational costs are significantly lower than in the United States.
The former Dr. Reddy’s plant has been sitting empty for months.
An interactive chart clearly illustrates the significant decline in the number of U.S. generic drug factories. This data, reported several months before the start of each year by the F.D.A., highlights a troubling trend for domestic generic drug production.
Dr. Reddy’s declined to comment. However, a company spokeswoman, Lori McCreary, informed a Shreveport newspaper that the plant lacked “a clear path to profitability.”
The tough economic conditions of generic drug manufacturing have made these closures a common occurrence. In 2021, America’s largest remaining generic drug factory, located in Morgantown, West Virginia, also shut down. Its production moved to India, resulting in 1,400 job losses.
In recent years, numerous other facilities that produced generic chemotherapies, antibiotics, and treatments for conditions like diabetes, ADHD, and asthma have ceased operations in states including Illinois, North Carolina, California, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Another factory in Pennsylvania is slated for closure next year.
While some closed plants have been acquired and revitalized by other drug manufacturers, the majority of these shuttered facilities are no longer producing medicines.
Since 2013, the number of U.S. facilities involved in formulating generic drugs, such as the Shreveport plant, has decreased by 27 percent, according to an analysis of Food and Drug Administration data.
Drug manufacturing is a multi-stage process, with different factories often located across the globe. Raw materials are processed into active ingredients, which are then used by facilities like the one in Shreveport to create the final product.
The Shreveport plant never produced active ingredients; instead, it imported them in large barrels from countries like China and India. The number of U.S. plants handling this critical stage in generic drug production has fallen by 38 percent since 2013.
The Trump administration attempted to encourage more U.S. generic drug manufacturing, but supply chain experts noted a lack of financial incentive for large-scale domestic production.
To date, only a handful of generic drugmakers—Hikma, Amneal, and Lupin—have announced plans to build new factories within the United States.
Sandoz, one of the largest generic drug producers, recently stated it had no immediate plans for U.S. manufacturing. Its chief executive, Richard Saynor, told The Wall Street Journal, “You sell a packet of antibiotics more cheaply than a packet of M&M’s. That’s offensive, and we lose money doing that.” The company has since expressed openness to U.S. production but has yet to announce any concrete investments.
In stark contrast to the modern, gleaming U.S. facilities producing brand-name medications like Covid vaccines and million-dollar gene therapies, many of America’s remaining generic drug plants are showing their age.
The Shreveport factory, constructed in the 1980s, still relies on much of its decades-old equipment. Workers who assessed the boiler room earlier this year estimated repairs alone could exceed $2 million.
The sprawling factory was originally designed to accommodate far more workers than the approximately 100 present at its closure. Now, only three employees remain, tasked with maintaining basic functions like lighting and climate control while the search for a buyer continues. The Dr. Reddy’s signage has since been removed.
The site has an eerie, post-apocalyptic atmosphere: office supplies are scattered on desks, and forklifts are haphazardly parked on the manufacturing floor, as if operations ceased mid-shift.
The tablet production process began in the factory’s vast warehouse, where workers received and stored large barrels of active ingredients and raw materials. They would then meticulously weigh and measure the quantities required for each formulation.
Machines transformed tiny particles into slightly larger granules before compressing them into tablets. Another machine then rotated the tablets, much like laundry, spraying them with a protective coating. Finally, lines and letters were printed on the tablets before they moved to an assembly line for bottling.
For many years, the factory’s most crucial product was Tylenol, which Dr. Reddy’s produced under contract, first for Johnson & Johnson, and later for Kenvue. The plant also manufactured various prescription and over-the-counter drugs sold in pharmacies and major retail outlets like Walmart.
Boom times come to an end
Among those laid off in March was Sonny Rambin, 65, who had worked at the plant from its inception until its final day.
In 1984, Mr. Rambin transitioned from the oil industry after a friend helped him secure a job in Shreveport at Boots Pharmaceuticals, a prominent British drugmaker that had established a presence in the region a few years prior by acquiring a local drug company.
Boots invested $36 million in building the plant, an amount equivalent to over $100 million today—significantly less than it would cost to construct a similar facility now. In 1986, local and British dignitaries attended a grand opening ceremony. Mr. Rambin himself was given the task of spray-painting a shovel gold. The local symphony performed, and Shreveport’s mayor hailed the factory as a crown jewel for the city.
In those flourishing years for Boots, the Shreveport factory’s offices and production lines were bustling with activity.
“That was the heyday,” Mr. Rambin recalled. “They were giving bonuses, they had big company parties. It was like episodes of ‘Mad Men’ — everybody was drinking and smoking and having great times.”
Sonny Rambin was among the roughly 100 employees laid off when the Shreveport factory closed in March.
The prosperity continued into the 1990s, with the plant’s workforce expanding to around 400 employees under the new ownership of BASF, a German chemical company.
However, by 2009, when Dr. Reddy’s acquired the plant to strengthen its U.S. presence, the industry landscape had already begun to shift dramatically.
U.S. pharmaceutical production, by one key metric, had already peaked in 2006.
A combination of new clean air and clean water legislation in the U.S. and rising labor costs pushed drug manufacturing overseas. Around the same time, numerous top-selling medicines lost their patent protection, and international factories, particularly in India, eagerly seized the opportunity to produce generic versions.
These lower overseas production costs gave foreign generic drug manufacturers a significant competitive edge over their American counterparts.
Many generic companies unable to compete have abruptly exited the market, leading to widespread drug shortages. Those that remain often operate with extremely narrow profit margins. Fierce competition among multiple manufacturers further drives prices down.
“When you’re manufacturing some products that have been around for decades, there’s just not a lot of money in it,” explained Mike McCorkle, who managed operations at the Shreveport plant for 20 years. “Given how much less it can cost to make the drug in another country, including India, it can be tough to be competitive with U.S. manufacturing economics.”
The average cost of employing a worker in the U.S. can be ten or more times higher than for an Indian worker. Today, India is responsible for producing approximately half of the generic drugs consumed by Americans.
A clear sign of the Shreveport plant’s impending decline came a few years ago when Dr. Reddy’s opted to move the production of a generic version of Zyrtec, an allergy medication, to India, according to several former employees.
“When you see a drug that they’ve been manufacturing for years, and they’re taking it to India to manufacture, you think, ‘Oh boy, that’s not a good sign,’” said Curtis Webb, a manufacturing technician who worked at the plant for 11 years.
Troy Norris, who worked at the Shreveport plant for 33 years; weeds taking over in July; Mike McCorkle, who was there for 20 years.
Factory up for sale
Over time, employees at the plant observed a decrease in tablet production. Long-serving staff departed, and new hires followed suit. Dr. Reddy’s began accumulating substantial losses.
Workers were not surprised when management announced the plant’s closure in January. “We knew it was coming,” stated Troy Norris, 60, who spent 33 years cleaning and stocking equipment at the facility.
Dr. Reddy’s sold the factory to Ten Oaks Group, a firm specializing in flipping properties to new owners. Initially, the plant and its equipment were listed online for just $18 million.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, has worked to raise the plant’s profile, but a buyer remains elusive. The facility would require significant regulatory approval to resume pharmaceutical manufacturing—a substantial upfront investment that could take years to yield any revenue.
In July, the plant changed hands once more, acquired by Green Dock Partners, a New York real estate firm now actively seeking a buyer, according to partner Jacob Solomons. Mr. Solomons expressed optimism that the plant would soon be purchased and emphasized that the search was not limited to generic drug manufacturers.
“We truly believe this offers an excellent opportunity, at a discount, compared to building a brand-new facility and purchasing all new equipment,” Mr. Solomons explained.
Many of the laid-off workers have found new jobs in various local industries, while others have relocated across the country to work for different pharmaceutical companies. Some still hold onto hope of returning to the plant if it ever reopens.
Over the years, Mr. Rambin advanced to become a chemist. However, he became disillusioned with the generic drug business under Dr. Reddy’s ownership. He saw the plant’s closure as a clear sign it was time to retire. “Every time I drive by the plant, I just kind of get sad,” Mr. Rambin reflected. “So much of my life was spent there.”
Mr. Rambin viewed the Shreveport plant’s closing as a sign that it was time to retire.