Eamon Judge

Retired Executive Director, Eli Lilly

Eamon Judge recently retired from his role as Executive Director in Eli Lilly’s Global Engineering Headquarters after a 43 year long career in the biopharma industry.  He joined Eli Lilly in 1980 with a B Eng (Hons) Chemical Engineering Degree from UCD. 

His subsequent career took him through a wide range of site leadership functions at Lilly’s manufacturing site just outside Kinsale, Cork.  He spent a period at Lilly’s Corporate headquarters in Indianapolis in the mid 1990s and subsequently returned to a Senior Director position in the Lilly Ireland Senior Management Team.  He had Senior Director oversight of Lilly’s Engineering and HSE Functions which included a focus on improving the sustainability of its operations.

Eamon represented  Lilly on the governance counsel of Biopharmachemical Ireland and contributed to the development of one of the first BPCI Strategic Plans for the biopharma sector.  He subsequently became President for two terms of the Ireland Affiliate of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering as well as Chairing the European Affiliate Counsel of ISPE.

In recent years in his corporate role, Eamon became Executive Director in Lilly’s Global Engineering function and has had responsibility for front end strategic planning for over $3b of investments by Lilly in Europe and Asia. His responsibilities included the site selection of a new European Biologics API site for Lilly that in the end has led to the construction of a new $1.5b site at Raheen in Limerick which is expected to commence start-up operations in 2024. 

Eamon’s personal interest in ESG has been to the fore throughout his career and especially in recent years as he oversaw the construction of Ireland’s largest ‘private wire’ solar farms at Lilly’s site in Ireland and more recently in retirement has been doing post graduate study on Corporate Governance Reflecting his early career involvement as a scout leader,  Eamon has had a long-standing interest in youth science and for over 20 years has been coaching students who have been participating in the Annual BT Young Scientist Exhibition.  Eamon’s peers recognised his career contributions of the sector by declaring him the 2022 Biopharma Leader of the Year.