Producer
Eli Lilly and Company
Second-largest insulin manufacturer; invented the first commercial insulin (1923). Uses Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) fermentation exclusively. Markets Humalog (lispro), Basaglar (glargine), and Lyumjev. Also dominant in GLP-1 market (Mounjaro/Zepbound). FY2024 revenue ~$45B.
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Insulin (First Commercial Insulin, 1923)
15%GLP-1 (Mounjaro + Zepbound = Tirzepatide)
45%Oncology (Verzenio + Kisunla)
25%Immunology + Neuroscience
15%
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Did you know2023
Eli Lilly's product portfolio represents the two extremes of pharmaceutical pricing and access policy simultaneously: (1) Insulin — a century-old essential medicine that is literally a life-sustaining drug for 8+ million Type 1 diabetics (who die without it); US insulin pricing was subject to intense Congressional and public scrutiny through the 2010s (Lilly Humalog listed price rose from ~$35/vial in 1996 to ~$275 in 2019); Lilly eventually announced an insulin price cap of $35/month for US patients under pressure; insulin is cited as the defining pharmaceutical access failure of American healthcare; (2) Tirzepatide/Zepbound — a new-generation obesity drug that costs ~$10,000-12,000/year out-of-pocket; insurance coverage is contested; represents the opposite access challenge from insulin (novel, very expensive, life-improving but not life-sustaining for most patients). Lilly sells both the cheapest essential medicine that US legislators have used as the headline example of pharmaceutical pricing failure AND one of the most expensive new lifestyle/treatment drugs. The same Indianapolis company: subject to insulin price capping legislation AND introducing $1,000+/month obesity drugs. The pharmaceutical pricing debate's two poles are both embodied in Eli Lilly's product catalog.
Eli Lilly and Company ↗Origin2023
Eli Lilly has twice transformed global medicine from its Indianapolis base: (1) 1923 insulin commercialization — when Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921, they licensed the technology to Eli Lilly for mass production; Lilly scaled production from experimental extracts of animal pancreases to commercial volumes within 18 months; the first US patients received Lilly insulin in 1923; before insulin, Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence; Lilly's manufacturing capability turned a laboratory discovery into a life-saving medicine at scale; (2) 1982 Humulin approval — the first commercially approved product made by recombinant DNA technology; Genentech had earlier made somatostatin and insulin in E. coli, but Humulin was the first rDNA pharmaceutical approved by FDA for commercial sale; Lilly manufactured and marketed it; the entire modern biotechnology industry traces its first commercial product to Eli Lilly and Indianapolis. The same company that scaled animal-derived insulin in 1923 introduced the first genetically engineered pharmaceutical in 1982 — the founding origin story of both modern insulin therapy AND the entire recombinant protein pharmaceutical industry.
Eli Lilly and Company ↗