Lilly is committed to providing “Answers That Matter”— in the form of advanced therapies as well as in our ongoing dialogue with patients, providers, payors, and the public at large.

Today, we and others in health care face tough questions about access to treatment, managing costs, drug safety, and the best ways to fight disease.

Answering those questions requires that we provide reliable information, understand diverse perspectives, and stay focused on what’s best for patients. My colleagues and I hope that this booklet can help to accomplish those things — shedding light on how and why we do what we do in the pharmaceutical industry. We’re grateful for your interest.

John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer and President
Eli Lilly and Company

Important Facts
• Spending on prescription medicines in the U.S. is, and has always been, considerably less than spending on hospital care or physician services.

• Chronic disease accounts for $3 out of every $4 spent on health care. It’s the cost of disease – not the cost of medicines – that threatens the U.S. health care system.

• Changes in prescription medicine prices are in line with overall medical inflation. They are not driving increased spending for health services or insurance.

• Prescription medicine coverage is available now for Medicare beneficiaries.

• The pharmaceutical industry is committed to improving patients’ access to medicines. Between 2005 and 2007, through patient assistance programs, the pharmaceutical industry donated $11.1 billion worth of medicines, reaching 15.1 million U.S. patients.

• The pharmaceutical and biotech industries invested a combined $58.8 billion in research and development in 2007. Total appropriations for the National Institutes of Health were $28.9 billion.

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not monitor the safety or effectiveness of medicines purchased anywhere outside the United States. FDA sting operations reveal that many medicines promoted as Canadian actually originate in other countries.

• Prescription medicines can help lower overall medical treatment costs.

• Pharmaceuticals have the same patent life as other innovations – 20 years. The long development and review process means a pharmaceutical’s effective patent life is only 11 years.

• Pharmaceutical industry investment in research and development (R&D) is about 9 times greater than spending for direct-to-consumer advertising.

• About 26% of the world’s new medicines in 2007 were developed in the United States – more than in any other country.

Visit Medicines and Miracles: Improving medicines...Improving life Download Page

You can download full publication in PDF format.

Pricing & Profits
Are pharmaceutical companies’ profits too high?

You may hear that one reason Americans pay higher prices for their prescriptions is that drug companies’ profits are much higher than they need to be. Take a look at the chart below comparing the profits of some of America’s pharmaceutical companies to wellknown companies in other major U.S. industries. This list includes some of the most profitable companies in the pharmaceutical industry, but it does not reflect the countless smaller pharmaceutical and biotech companies that struggle financially for years trying to discover and develop new medicines.

Did you know?
Price controls erode incentives to innovate. One study estimates that cutting prescription drug prices in the U.S. by 40-50% could lead to 30-60% fewer R&D projects being undertaken.7 A related study estimates that government-imposed price controls would reduce the number of innovative new medicines launched on the market by almost 40%, or almost 200 fewer new medicines available over a period of less than 20 years.

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