Eli Lilly

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Group.png Eli Lilly  
(Big PharmaSourcewatch WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
HeadquartersIndianapolis, USA
Membership• George H. W. Bush
• David A. Ricks
• Ralph Alvarez
• Katherine Baicker
• Carolyn R. Bertozzi
• Michael L. Eskew
• J. Erik Fyrwald
• Jamere Jackson
• William G. Kaelin Jr
• Juan R. Luciano
• Marschall S. Runge
• Kathi P. Seifert
• Jackson P. Tai
• Karen Walker
• Melissa Stapleton Barnes
• Patrik Jonsson
• Sidney Taurel
Psyciatric drugs,Prozac, MKUltra...

Eli Lilly is an American pharmaceutical company, best known for producing LSD for the CIA’s MKultra mind control program. From 1977 to 1979, former CIA director George H. W. Bush was director of Eli Lilly.

Eli Lilly's notable achievements include being the first company to mass-produce the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk, and insulin. Lilly is currently the largest manufacturer of psychiatric medications and produces Prozac (fluoxetine), Dolophine (methadone), Cymbalta (duloxetine), and Zyprexa (olanzapine).


The company's founder was Colonel Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and Union army veteran of the American Civil War. Lilly served as the company president until his death in 1898. Around 1890, Colonel Lilly turned over the day-to-day management of the business to his son, J. K., who ran the company for thirty-four years.

Until the turn of the century Lilly operated in Indianapolis and the surrounding area as many other pharmaceutical businesses did—manufacturing and selling "sugar-coated pills, fluid extracts, elixirs, and syrups". One historian noted, "Although the Indianapolis firm was more careful in making and promoting drugs than the patent medicine men of the era, the company remained ambivalent about scientific research."[1]

During the 1920s the introduction of new products also brought the company financial success. In 1919 Josiah hired biochemist George Henry Alexander Clowes as director of biochemical research. 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. Banting and Macleod won a Nobel Prize in 1923 for their research.

Despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression, Lilly's sales rose to $13 million in 1932. That same year Eli Lilly, the eldest grandson of Col. Lilly, was named as the company's president to succeed his father, who remained as chairman of the board until 1948. World War II brought production at Lilly to a new high with the manufacturing of Merthiolate and penicillin. During the war Lilly also cooperated with the American Red Cross to process blood plasma.


In 1991, Vaughn Bryson was named CEO of Eli Lilly. During his 20-month tenure, the company reported its first quarterly loss as a publicly traded company. In 1993 Randall L. Tobias, a vice-chairman of AT&T Corporation and Lilly board member, was named Lilly's chairman, president, and CEO after "product and competitive pressures" had "steadily eroded Lilly's stock price since early 1992." Tobias was the first president and CEO recruited from outside of the company. Under Tobias's leadership the company cut costs and narrowed its mission. Lilly sold companies in its Medical Device and Diagnostics Division, expanded international sales, made new acquisitions, and funded additional research and product development. Sidney Taurel, former chief operating officer of Lilly, was named CEO in 1998, replacing Tobias. Taurel was named chairman in January 1999. In 2000 Lilly reported $10.86 billion in net sales.

Unehtical and Illegal Practices


Eli Lilly - officially - spent $7,920,000 on lobbying the U.S. Congress in 2019, with $901,122 in contributions.[2]


In January 2009, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history, totaling $1.415 billion, including a $515 million criminal fine, was imposed on Lilly for illegal marketing of its best-selling product, the atypical antipsychotic medication, Zyprexa.[3] The criminal fine of $515 million was 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. "That was a blemish for us," John C. Lechleiter, CEO of Lilly, stated publicly. In an internal email, Lechleiter had stated "we must seize the opportunity to expand our work with Zyprexa in this same child-adolescent population" for off-label use.[4]

Diabetes lawsuits





Drugging children





2002 FDA reports prior to warning in 2003


Promoting Zyprexia for dementia



Eli Lilly developed and sold Fluoxetine under the brand name Prozac. In the U.S., the FDA gave its final approval in December 1987,and a month later Eli Lilly began marketing Prozac; annual sales in the U.S. reached $350 million within a year. Worldwide sales eventually reached a peak of $2.6 billion a year. The drug was heavily promoted for more than a decade as a miracle drug.

A 2009 landmark study found that fluoxetine was more likely to increase overall suicidal behavior. 14.7% of the patients on fluoxetine had suicidal events, compared to 6.3% in the psychotherapy group and 8.4% from the combined treatment group.[9]Eli Lilly, the manufacturer, and the lead researcher did not make these findings obvious.[10] Several internal documents, which were released by the British Medical Journal, indicated a link between use of Prozac and suicidal or violent behavior. The FDA has warned that Prozac and similar antidepressants could cause agitation, panic attacks and aggression.[11] These documents revealed that Eli Lilly knew about this as early as 1984, years before the drug was FDA-approved.

John Virapen, former managing director of Eli Lilly and Company in Sweden, reports in his book "Side Effects Death" about marketing strategies and corruption of the company in the course of the market launch of fluoxetine as an antidepressant.[12]

Bovine Growth Hormone

Eli Lilly is now the sole manufacturer of Bovine Growth Hormone, having purchased the rights to manufacture the drug from Monsanto.



Lilly Endowment

In 1937, Josiah K. Lilly Sr. and his two sons, Eli and Joe, founded the Lilly Endowment, one of the world's largest private philanthropic foundations and among the largest endowments in the United States, with gifts of Lilly stock. The private family foundation is a separate entity from the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical firm, and maintains its headquarters in a different location. The foundation has been a major funder of a range of think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation,Freedom House and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.