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Eli Lilly and Company

U.S. large-cap pharmaceutical corporation

Owned byPublicly traded (NYSE: LLY); Lilly Endowment, Inc. holds approximately 9.6% of common shares as of mid-2026; the remainder is broadly held by institutional investors including Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street
FundingProduct sales revenue — primarily from prescription drugs including the GLP-1 medicines Mounjaro (tirzepatide, for type 2 diabetes) and Zepbound (tirzepatide, for obesity), which together generated about $36.5 billion in 2025; total 2025 revenue was approximately $65.2 billion
On the administrationmixed

Background

Colonel Eli Lilly, a Civil War veteran and pharmaceutical chemist, founded the company on May 10, 1876, in Indianapolis, Indiana, with three employees and an initial focus on producing high-quality, science-backed medicines; its first major product was quinine for malaria. The company grew steadily through the early twentieth century and became publicly traded in 1952, though the Lilly family retained significant influence for decades through the Lilly Endowment. A landmark moment came in 1982 when Lilly produced the world's first human insulin made through recombinant DNA technology, cementing its reputation as a biomedical innovator. Through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Lilly built franchises in oncology, neuroscience, and immunology, while also facing controversies — most notably a 2009 settlement of more than $1.4 billion with the U.S. Department of Justice over illegal marketing of the antipsychotic Zyprexa. The company's profile was transformed in the 2020s by the success of tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for obesity, turning Lilly into one of the most valuable corporations in the world by market capitalization. In Q1 2026 alone, the company reported $19.8 billion in revenue, a 56% year-over-year increase, and raised its full-year 2026 guidance to $82–$85 billion. By mid-2026, Lilly had committed more than $50 billion to U.S. manufacturing expansions and had signed more mergers and acquisitions than any other company in the pharmaceutical sector, spending over $25 billion across ten transactions.

Sources

  1. Eli Lilly and Company — Wikipedia
  2. Eli Lilly and Co. — Britannica Money
  3. A history of Eli Lilly & Co — pharmaphorum
  4. Lilly Q1 2026 Revenue Jumps 56% to $19.8B — American Pharmaceutical Review
  5. Trump announces deals with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk to slash weight loss drug prices — CNBC
  6. Eli Lilly opposes push to pass Trump's drug pricing deals into law — CNBC
  7. Lilly's $25B+ M&A spree captures half of pharma's 2026 capacity — BioSpace
  8. Eli Lilly and Company — Eli Lilly Institutional Ownership 2026 — MarketBeat

Profile compiled 2026-09-02; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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