Eli Lilly and Company is an American 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, and named after, Colonel Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and veteran of the American Civil War.[5]

As of 2022, Lilly is known for its clinical depression drugs Prozac (fluoxetine) (1986) and Cymbalta (duloxetine) (2004) and antipsychotic medication Zyprexa (olanzapine) (1996), though its primary revenue drivers are diabetes drugs Humalog (insulin lispro) (1996) and Trulicity (dulaglutide) (2014).[6] Lilly's achievements include being the first company to mass-produce the polio vaccine developed 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).[7]

In 2009 Lilly pleaded guilty for illegally marketing Zyprexa and agreed to pay a $1.415 billion penalty that included criminal fine of $515 million, the largest ever in a healthcare case and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a US criminal prosecution of any kind.[8][9] As of 1997, it was the largest corporation and the largest charitable benefactor in Indiana.[10] In 2019, the company was ranked 123rd on the Fortune 500.[11] It is ranked 221st on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the largest public companies in the world[12] and 252nd on the Forbes list of America's Best Employers.[13] Lilly is a full member of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America[14] and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).