Eli Lilly and Company history

In 1878, Lilly hired his brother, James, as his first full-time salesman and the subsequent sales team marketed the company's drugs nationally.

In 1881, Lilly formally incorporated the business as Eli Lilly and Company, elected a board of directors, and issued stock to family members and close associates.

Colonel Lilly's only son, Josiah (J. K.), a pharmaceutical chemist, graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1882, and joined the family business as a superintendent of its laboratory after college.

In 1883 the company contracted to mix and sell Succus Alteran, its first widely successful product and one its best sellers.

In 1886, Lilly implemented a novel pharmaceutical research program when he hired a chemist, Ernest Eber-hard, who would perform as a full-time scientist to test the quality of products.

By 1890, J K. Lilly, Sr. assumed control of the growing company, which had relocated to McCarty Street after outgrowing its previous locations.

He served as president of the Commercial Club to help in the development of the city and chaired a committee to help the indigent during the financial panic of 1893.

In 1894 Lilly purchased a manufacturing plant to be used solely for creating capsules.

Even though Lilly died in 1898, his Civil War experiences and focus on science in developing new drugs would continue to shape his company’s culture through the 20th century.

Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and incorporated in 1901, Eli Lilly and Company is probably best known for introducing the world to Prozac, a pharmaceutical treatment for clinical depression.

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the company sent as much of its stock as it could to the disaster area at the request of sales personnel and wholesalers.

In 1909, Lilly was named superintendent of the manufacturing division, where he continued to implement new ideas that made the company more efficient and thus more profitable.

The company also began constructions of the Lilly Biological Laboratories, a research and manufacturing plant on 150 acres near Greenfield, Indiana, in 1913.

Joe joined the company in 1914 and concentrated on the company's personnel and marketing efforts.

In 1919 Josiah hired biochemist George Henry Alexander Clowes as director of biochemical research.

In the 1920’s the company developed insulin from a hormone extracted from the pancreas of pigs.

In 1921 three University of Toronto scientists, J. J. R. Macleod, Frederick G. Banting, and Charles H. Best, were working on the development of insulin for treatment of diabetes.

Lilly also laid the foundations for its reputation for marketing ingenuity in those early years. Its sales marketing department was formally established around 1922.

The work resulted in Lilly’s introduction of Iletin, the world’s first commercially available insulin product, in 1923.

Under Eli's supervision, the design for Building 22, a new 5-floor plant that opened in Indianapolis in 1926, implemented the straight-line concept to improve production efficiency and lower production costs.

In 1928 Lilly introduced Liver Extract 343 for the treatment of pernicious anemia, a blood disorder, in a joint venture with two Harvard University scientists, George R. Minot and William P. Murphy.

Eager to continue such success, Lilly approved many new research projects, including a liver extract for the treatment of pernicious anemia in 1930.

Despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression, Lilly's sales rose to $13 million in 1932.

In 1934, it opened its first international subsidiary in the UK.

The Lilly family in 1937 established the Lilly Endowment to provide financial support for educational, cultural, and religious institutions.

International operations expanded even further during World War II. Eli Lilly International Corp. was formed in 1943 as a subsidiary to encourage business trade abroad.

In early 1944, the company became the first to mass produce penicillin, leading Lilly into the field of infectious disease prevention even as the antibiotic was rushed to allied battlefields in Europe and across the Pacific.

In 1945, Lilly began a major expansion effort that would include two manufacturing operations in Indianapolis.

Clark, Roscoe Collins, Threescore Years and Ten: A Narrative of the First Seventy Years of Eli Lilly & Company, Chicago: R.R. Donnelly, 1946.

She spent time at rehabilitation facilities, but her increasing irresponsibility compelled her father to alter his will by 1948 after realizing she would likely squander any fortune left to her.

By 1950, the company had grown to more than 5,500 employees with sales reaching $159 million.

In 1952 the company offered its first public shares of stock.

After Lilly was appointed honorary chair in 1953 and had no other daily duties at company headquarters, he came to the office three days a week for years and remained a vital force.

In 1954, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) contracted with five pharmaceutical companies to produce Salk's polio vaccine for clinical trials.

In 1955, Lilly became the first pharmaceutical company to manufacture and distribute the Salk Polio Vaccine.

Critics had charged that the drug introduced in 1957 was both ineffective and had the dangerous potential for abuse, but Lilly mounted an educational campaign on proper use of the drug and continued to hold 80 percent of the prescription analgesic market.

The company expanded into cancer treatment in 1961, developing and marketing Velban (vinblastine), a chemotherapy drug used to treat several types of cancer.

In 1962, with an acquisition from Distillers Company, the company established a major factory in Liverpool, England.

Bottcher, Helmuth M., Wonder Drugs, A History of Antibiotics, London: Heinemann, 1963.

In 1968, Lilly built its first research facility, the Lilly Research Centre Limited, outside the United States near London, England in Surrey.

Furthermore, the endowment resisted making large disbursements, and it was not until the 1969 Tax Reform Act that the endowment was forced to loosen its 25 percent hold on stock.

The introduction of several new drugs in the late 1970’s increased Lilly’s sales and challenged the market boundaries of competing products.

For instance, in 1971 Forbes magazine prepared a profile of the company, but because Lilly did not want the article published, an Indianapolis newspaper refused to sell Forbes photographs of the Lilly family.

Richard Wood, who advanced to the CEO position in 1973, was only the second of six presidents to be an "outsider." He was, of course, born and raised in Indiana and was a longtime Lilly employee.

He was diagnosed with liver cancer not long after the company celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1976.

1977: IVAC Corporation is acquired.

With a 19% increase in sales in 1978, a 24% return on equity, and impressive results from President Wood’s foreign-market campaign, Lilly’s prospects seemed excellent.

Yet in 1979 the foundation continued to hold 18.6% of company shares.

In 1980, Lilly acquired Physio-Control Corporation.

Meanwhile, Lilly increased its expenditure on research and development of pharmaceuticals, spending $235 million in those areas in 1981 alone.

In 1982, the company released the diabetes drug Humulin.

With the new drugs, the company was able to recapture hegemony of the cephalosporin market; of the $3.27 billion in company sales in 1985, $1.05 billion was from the sale of antibiotics.

Hybritech, a California diagnostic products company, was purchased for $350 million in 1986.

In 1988, it produced perhaps its best known product when it developed Prozac, the first drug of its kind to treat clinical depression.

In 1989, a joint agri-chemical venture between Elanco Products Company and Dow Chemical created DowElanco.

About two million individuals worldwide had taken the drug by the summer of 1990.

In 1991, Wood abdicated Lilly’s chief executive office and chose Vaughn D. Bryson, a longtime executive, as his successor.

Heart Rhythm Technologies, Inc. was acquired in 1992.

In 1993, for the first time in its history, Lilly was led by an executive who had not had a career with the venerable drug company.

The medicine to treat clinical depression accounted for $2 billion in sales in 1994 – almost a third of the company’s total revenue that year.

In 1996 the FDA approved Lilly’s Gemzar as the nation’s first drug to treat pancreatic cancer.

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O'Malley, Chris. "Lilly Takes Prozac to the People." Indianapolis Star, July 1, 1998.

Taurel was named chairman in January 1999.

In 2000, Lilly reported $10.86 billion in net sales.

Lilly was expected to only show a 4 percent profit in 2001.

In January 2002 the United States Supreme Court rejected Lilly’s final patent appeal without comment, which opened the door to several other companies making generic versions of the antidepressant drug.

But because of the new products Eli Lilly researchers have been developing, analysts are expecting that annual earnings should increase by 17 percent as profits begin to show in the beginning of 2003.

In 2004, Symbyax®, the first and only FDA-approved medication to treat bipolar depression, was launched in the United States Alimta® was approved for use with cisplatin, a standard chemotherapy agent, for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma.

In 2005, Byetta®, a first in a new class of medicines known as incretin mimetics to treat type 2 diabetes, was approved and launched in the United States

In October 2006, Lilly announced its intention to acquire Icos for $2.1 billion, or $32 per share.

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy advisory firm, advised Icos shareholders to reject the proposal as undervalued, but the buyout was approved by Icos shareholders and Lilly completed its acquisition of the company on January 29, 2007.

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In January 2009, the largest criminal fine in United States history, totaling $1.415 billion was imposed on Lilly for illegal marketing of its best-selling product, the atypical antipsychotic medication, Zyprexa.

In January 2011, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company announced their global agreement for the joint development and marketing of new APIs for diabetes therapy.

In April 2014, Lilly announced plans to buy Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG's animal health business for $5.4 billion in cash to strengthen and diversify its Elanco unit.

In April 2015, the company engaged CBRE Group to sell its biomanufacturing facility in Vacaville, California.

In 2016, Lilly said it had established a settlement framework to settle the nearly 140 lawsuits still pending in various United States courts over injuries from Cymbalta.

Just two months later, in May 2017, Lilly raised the price of Humalog by 7.8 percent to $274.70 for a 10 ml vial.

In May 2018, the company acquired Armo Biosciences for $1.6 billion.

In August 2019, Elanco acquired the Bayer animal health business for $7.6 billion.

In January 2020, the company announced its acquisition of Dermira for $1.1 billion, gaining control of two key assets, among others; lebrikizumab and glycopyrronium cloth used to treat hyperhidrosis.

On 16 April 2021, the FDA revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) that allowed for the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab, when administered alone, to be used for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and certain pediatric patients.