TB Fighter

Eli Lilly India has committed $50 million to fight Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Eli Lilly & Company (India)

Business: Marketing of pharmaceutical products

CEO: Sandeep Gupta (MD)

Biotech Revenue: Rs 112 crore

Start-up Year: 1993

Address: Plot No. 92, Sector 32, Institutional Area, Gurgaon - 122 001

Tel.: 91-124-2823000

Fax: 91-124-2823012

Website: www.lillyindia.co.in

Eli Lilly India is among the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies in India and is present in diabetes, oncology, bone health and growth and critical care drug segments and derives 60 percent of its Indian revenues from the insulin segment.

This year Eli Lilly launched HumaCare Junior, a new drug for juvenile diabetics. The company intends to deliver this drug free of cost to deserving children who suffer from Type I diabetes. Under the Peaks and Valley Complications Check (PVCC) program, the company targets to provide free medical treatment to 50,000 high-risk diabetics in the next three years. Late last year, it had launched Alimta, used in treating a rare type of cancer. It also has an approved second line of treatment for non small-cell lung cancer.

Earlier this year, the company acquired Hypnion, a neuroscience drug research company. Eli Lilly also entered into a pre-clinical drug development agreement with Mumbai-based Nicholas Piramal to develop and commercialize a select group of its pre-clinical drugs of multiple therapeutic areas. Under the deal, Eli Lilly would make milestone payments of up to $100 million and royalties on sales upon successful launch of the drugs. In August 2006, Hyderabad-based Suven Life Sciences signed an agreement with Eli Lilly to collaborate on the pre-clinical research of molecules in the therapeutic area of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Scientists from both companies would work together with the goal of identifying potent oral compounds that selectively modulate the specified "G- Protein Coupled Receptor" for the target CNS disease.

For its R&D, Eli Lilly has identified Asia as an important destination and the company invested $150 million in its Singapore research center. In November 2006, it outsourced a range of clinical data management services to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which has built a facility near New Delhi dedicated to Eli Lilly work. The company also committed $50 million to fight Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB). The campaign is carried out in an international partnership with 14 public and private organizations around the world, and takes the company's global financial commitment to the cause to $120 million since 2003. Eli Lilly does not sell any TB drugs in India but provides WHO-approved programs with its two MDR-TB drugs at subsidised rates.

Eli Lilly is in the process of submitting documents to the Drug-Controller General of India on Byetta, an injectible medicine for people with type II diabetes. Byetta was recently launched in parts of Europe.