Heart disease Hearing loss Addiction. Chronic pain Alzheimer's. Als. These are some of the areas where Eli LillyCash of his GLP-1 drugs, he wants to make great bets.
These are the ideas that “hide in sight,” said Lilly's scientific director Dan Skovronsky. They are places where other pharmaceutical companies may not want to go because they are difficult problems.
“As really the largest medical care company in the world really, probably the largest medical care company in the world in history, we have an obligation,” Skovronsky said. “Investors have given us that vote of confidence. We see that as an obligation to invest in some of these big problems that hide in sight, to try to make the difference for the health of their community.”
The Lilly Tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro for Diabetes and Zepbound for Obesity, has transformed the company. The company's sales have grown almost 60% since Mounjaro was approved in 2022. The price of Lilly shares has shot 268% higher in the last three years, which gives the company a capitalization of $ 823 market One billion: the highest of any medical care company.
Now the company wants this success to translate into other areas of illness.
Lilly is already testing if her Kisunla medicine can prevent Alzheimer's disease. Kisunla is a monoclonal antibody that eliminates the amyloid plates of the brain, which are associated with memory disease. It is currently approved to treat people in Alzheimer's early stages.
The company recruit elderly people in the churches, Walmart parking and other places to make a blood test and see if they are at risk of the disease. Some of the people in the trial will receive Kisunla and others will receive a placebo. Once enough participants are diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Lilly will see and see if there is a difference between the people who received their drugs and people who received a placebo.
“If we can prevent it, even in half of the patients, it will be a revolution on how we think to diagnose and treat Alzheimer's,” Skovronsky said. “It would probably mark an important turning point in how this type of medication is used.”
A vial of Eli Lilly's Alzheimer's drugs sold under the Kisunla brand.
Source: Eli Lilly
Lilly is also strongly investing in gene therapy at a time when the field faces significant uncertainty. Last summer, the company opened the Lilly Institute of Genetic Medicine of $ 700 million in Boston, far from the headquarters of Lilly in Indianapolis and in one of the US epicenters for this work.
Biofarma and small biofarma companies are struggling to convert the potential of scientific advances such as CRISPR-CAS9 gene editing technology in high-success drugs. One of the attractions has been to discover how to obtain treatments to its destinations within the body, or delivery, as it is known in the industry.
“The reality is that local delivery will be a small application for human health, but once we decipher it, and I think Lily is the company that can break it, because when we think about delivering to other fabrics, it is not just genetic medicine How do you package?
Lilly is in the unique position to take the big swings. It remains to be seen if you can hit them.
