Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company was founded in Indianapolis on May 10, 1876, by Colonel Eli Lilly. Lilly’s 2025 Form 10-K states that the company was incorporated in Indiana in 1901 to succeed to the drug-manufacturing business founded in Indianapolis in 1876, and identifies the Lilly Corporate Center in Indianapolis as its principal executive office. [1] [2]

The company’s documented milestones include the introduction of its first commercially available insulin product in 1923, development of a method to mass-produce Penicillin-G in the 1940s, and manufacture and global distribution of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955. These episodes connect Lilly’s corporate history to the industrial production and distribution of medicines developed through academic and public-health research. [1]

Lilly currently describes itself as a medicine company whose portfolio and research address cancer, diabetes, endocrinology, immunology, neuroscience, obesity, and other disease areas. Its current key-facts page reports that products are marketed in approximately 90 countries, clinical research is conducted in more than 55 countries, and 2025 research-and-development spending was $13.337 billion, or 20.5 percent of sales. [3] [4]

The company’s 2025 filing describes production and distribution sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, Europe, and Asia, with major production sites in Indiana, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Wisconsin, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, China, and Japan. Lilly’s current key-facts page reports manufacturing plants in 10 countries and products marketed in approximately 90 countries, placing the Indianapolis-headquartered company’s research and manufacturing activities in a global operating context. [2] [3]