Eli Lilly and Company
Explore Eli Lilly and
Core profile pages, annual revenue records, and related research hubs for this company.
Eli Lilly and Company
Explore Eli Lilly and
Core profile pages, annual revenue records, and related research hubs for this company.
Founders
Colonel Eli Lilly · Founded 1876 · Indianapolis, Indiana
Quick Answer
Eli Lilly and was founded by Colonel Eli Lilly in 1876 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company is currently led by David A. Ricks.
Colonel Eli Lilly founded the company in Indianapolis in 1876 with a focus on producing reliable medicines at industrial scale. That manufacturing and research orientation remains central to the company.
David A. Ricks
Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer
Leads Lilly through the obesity, diabetes, manufacturing-capacity, and pipeline expansion era.
Sidney Taurel
Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Led Lilly through a global pharmaceutical expansion period and major product-cycle challenges.
Eli Lilly
Founder
Established the company's manufacturing and quality-control culture.
The company was founded in 1876 by Colonel Eli Lilly.
He was a pharmacist, but his massive legacy was military. He was an incredibly brave, highly decorated artillery commander for the Union Army during the American Civil War, surviving multiple massive battles and a prisoner-of-war camp.
Following the Civil War, America was flooded with 'Patent Medicines' (elixirs that contained opium and alcohol but did absolutely nothing). Disgusted by the fraud, Colonel Lilly aggressively founded his company to produce only scientifically formulated medicines for trained physicians.
Gelatin coating. In the 1800s, medicine tasted absolutely horrific. Colonel Lilly perfected a massive technique to coat pills in gelatin and completely invented fruit-flavored liquid syrups, making medicine vastly easier to swallow, which caused his business to absolutely explode.
Yes. The founder's grandchildren created the Lilly Endowment in 1937 with massive amounts of company stock. Today, it holds over $40 billion in assets, making it one of the absolute largest, most powerful philanthropic organizations on Earth, completely transforming the city of Indianapolis.