Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
Eli Lilly - Statistics & Facts
During 2023, somewhat inconspicuously, Eli Lilly from Indianapolis in the U.S. Midwest had become the world’s most valuable pharmaceutical company. By March 2023, the company’s market capitalization increased to around three-quarters of a trillion U.S. dollars. The former most valuable pharmaceutical company, Johnson & Johnson, was never even close to such a figure.
Big, but not among the top-notch companies
In 2023, Eli Lilly reported revenues totaling 34 billion U.S. dollars, a significant increase from the 28.5 billion dollars in the year before. In 2022, the company was ranked 13th based on prescription drug revenue among drug manufacturers worldwide. Thus, although a part of established big pharma companies, Eli Lilly was not at the very top. On the other hand, Eli Lilly is well-known for having very high revenue shares invested in research and development, at around 25 percent. The percentage even increased in 2023, reaching over 27 percent. Focusing on innovation and research seems to pay off now.The rise comes with a good reason
Eli Lilly’s rise has mostly been due to two reasons: a strong portfolio of current products and a promising R&D pipeline. As the other top rising pharmaceutical company in 2023, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly is profiting immensely from the sales of its latest weight-loss and diabetes drugs (Trulicity, Mounjaro, e.g.). Overweight, obesity, and diabetes are big public health issues worldwide and in high-income countries, representing a huge potential market. The hype about these ‘wonder drugs’ was especially tangible with Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, which became very present in the media. Meanwhile, experts state that another blockbuster might come in the form of Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s disease drug, Donanemab, although an accelerated approval application was blocked by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023.Foundation laid by a war veteran
Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, Eli Lilly is neighboring another pharma heavyweight in the Midwest, namely AbbVie from North Chicago, Illinois. The company’s roots lay in the 1870s when pharmaceutical chemist and American Civil War veteran Colonel Eli Lilly established a laboratory and started to manufacture medicines. Eli Lilly was responsible for some significant pharmaceutical achievements, like being the first company to mass-produce insulin and a polio vaccine. Among the company’s most known drugs are mental health treatments Prozac and Cymbalta (both for depression) and Zyprexa (an antipsychotic). Because of Zyprexa, Eli Lilly was involved in many lawsuits and, most famously, had to pay 1.4 billion U.S. dollars for marketing off-label use in 2009.
