Topic summary
Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company, doing business asLilly, is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and Union army veteran during the American Civil War for whom the company was later named.
The company is ranked 4th on the list of largest biomedical companies by revenue and is the most valuable pharmaceutical company worldwide. It is ranked 100th on the Fortune 500 and 138th on the Forbes Global 2000. In November 2025, the company reached a $1 trillion market capitalization, the first health-care company in the world to do so.
The company's primary products are tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) for the treatment of type2 diabetes, weight loss, and obstructive sleep apnea (56% of 2025 revenues); abemaciclib (Verzenio) for the treatment of advanced or metastatic breast cancers (9% of 2025 revenues); dulaglutide (Trulicity) for the treatment of type2 diabetes (7% of 2025 revenues); ixekizumab (Taltz) for the treatment of autoimmune diseases (6% of 2025 revenues); and empagliflozin (Jardiance) for the treatment of type2 diabetes (5% of 2025 revenues). Products that have a minor contribution to revenues include Insulin lispro (Humalog), a modified type of medical insulin; ramucirumab (Cyramza), a fully human monoclonal antibody used for the treatment of cancer; baricitinib (Olumiant), an immunomodulatory medication used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, alopecia areata, and COVID-19; insulin (Humulin) to treat high blood glucose; and galcanezumab (Emgality), a humanized monoclonal antibody used for the prevention of migraines. In 2024, 67% of the company's revenues came from the United States, 18% came from Europe, 3% came from Japan, and 3% came from China.
Lilly was the first company to mass-produce both the polio vaccine, developed in 1955 by Jonas Salk, and insulin. It was one of the first pharmaceutical companies to produce human insulin using recombinant DNA, including Humulin (insulin medication), Humalog (insulin lispro), and the first approved biosimilar insulin product in the US, Basaglar (insulin glargine). It achieved commercial success with major depressive disorder drugs Prozac (fluoxetine) (1986), Cymbalta (duloxetine) (2004), and its antipsychotic medication Zyprexa (olanzapine) (1996), all of which are now off patent and are manufactured by others as generic drugs. In 2005, Lilly brought exenatide to market—the first of the GLP-1 receptor agonists—followed by the GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide).
The Lilly Endowment, a charitable foundation organized in 1937 by the founding family, owns 9.8% of the company.