Eli Lilly

Under pressure, pharma collects new indications

Tracy Staton — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:32:24 -0400

If the pharma industry were in need of a poster child for indication-happy drug marketing, Cymbalta could be it. The Eli Lilly med is now "the Swiss army knife of drugs," the Indianapolis Star says. It has a half-dozen approved uses: depression, anxiety, maintenance treatment for depression, diabetic nerve pain, fibromyalgia, and in Europe, stress urinary incontinence. Plus, it's submitted for FDA approval of chronic knee and low back pain, and researchers are studying it as a chronic fatigue treatment.

There's reason behind this strategy. It works. On the market for just four years, Cymbalta racks up billions in sales for Lilly; in fact, it's Lilly's second-biggest seller. Given the fact that Lilly hasn't launched a new drug for humans in three years, growing existing meds has been crucial.

Lilly, of course, is far from alone. Dispirited by their limping pipelines and increasingly rigorous regulators, drug companies across the board have been looking for new uses for their already-approved drugs. Think Pfizer's Lyrica, for instance; it's approved for three different nervous system complaints, and the company plans to seek the OK for epilepsy treatment.

Understandably. But is this search for new indications eroding new-compound R&D? Some experts think so. Others say drugmakers would be remiss if they didn't look for new uses for old meds. One thing is certain: It's not about to stop anytime soon.

- read the story in the Indy Star

Setback for Lilly, gain for Plavix?

Tracy Staton — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:16:20 -0400

When FDA delayed its decision on Eli Lilly's clot-buster prasugrel, a.k.a. Effient, it sliced at least three months off the time Lilly might have to win market share from the commonly used blood thinner Plavix. Doing so quickly is crucial, because Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis' Plavix goes off patent by 2011--and cheap generic versions are likely to drain away even more of the market. Report

Lilly trumpets Cymbalta as arthritis med

Tracy Staton — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:18:40 -0400

Eli Lilly's Cymbalta might make the leap from psychiatric med to arthritis treatment. The company announced today that a study showed that 59 percent of patients saw their pain cut by 30 percent with Cymbalta, and 47 percent had a 50 percent reduction. That's compared with 45 percent and 29 percent on placebo, respectively. It wouldn't be Cymbalta's first painkilling indication; it's also approved for diabetic nerve pain. Report

Lilly's Evista has breast cancer benefits

Christe Bruderlin-Nelson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:44:03 -0400

Evista works to prevent and treat osteoporosis, but its manufacturer, Eli Lilly, found that it might also be useful for preventing one type of breast cancer. The drug's generic name is raloxifene.

According to a study of 10,000 women published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, those taking the drug were 55 percent less likely to develop a hormonal type of breast cancer than were women taking a placebo drug. The women in the study were looking to see if the drug would help prevent heart disease, but Evista had no positive findings in that arena.

Unlike bisphosphonates, Evista is a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) and prevents osteoporosis by acting at the estrogen receptors. While it makes sense that its breast cancer benefits would likely be limited to estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer, this is the first study validating that logic. Estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer is the most common type of breast cancer.

- check out the Evista release for more

Novo drug bests Byetta in ADA study

Tracy Staton — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:03:14 -0400

Amylin Pharmaceuticals' stock is suffering from a Novo Nordisk study that showed its experimental diabetes drug liraglutide outperformed Amylin's flagship drug Byetta, co-developed with Eli Lilly; shares dropped more than 8 percent Friday to close at $29.93. Report

Fortune snubs Big Pharma in employers list

Tracy Staton — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:56:34 -0400

Looking for the best employers? Don't look at Big Pharma. The annual Fortune magazine list of the 100 "Best Companies to Work For" contains only one Big Pharma name: AstraZeneca, at No. 83. Genentech, a biotech certainly worthy of the "Big" label, made the top 10 for the third year in a row (this year it's No. 5). But aside from AstraZeneca, none of the traditional pharma biggies got the nod this year. Over the past three years, only Eli Lilly popped onto the list, just once.

Given the fact that the industry has been roiled by layoffs and restructurings, the lack of major drugmakers in a best-employer ranking probably isn't that surprising. People working in fear for their jobs don't generate a lot of, shall we say, positive energy. Morale tends to suffer when the axe falls. So this conspicuous absence is just another sign that pharma is living through some interesting times.

- see the Fortune list
- check out the Pharmalot item

Lilly, FDA ironing out Zyprexa shot problems

Tracy Staton — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:13:19 -0400

Eli Lilly says it's making progress with the FDA on approval of its long-acting, injectable form of Zyprexa. You'll recall that the antipsychotic shot was up at an advisory committee recently, and panelists questioned the med's propensity to cause extreme drowsiness in some patients. The FDA ended up rejecting the formulation, saying it needed more data on the risk of and causes of that excessive sedation, which showed up in about 1 percent of patients. Well, CEO John Lechleiter (photo) now says that recent meetings with the FDA have borne fruit, and the company now expects to be able to sell injectable Zyprexa "in the near future."

- read the item at PharmaGossip

Doc disclosure gets boost from AZ, Merck

Tracy Staton — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:58:51 -0400

Drugmakers are climbing on the disclosure bandwagon. AstraZeneca and Merck have come out in favor of a bill requiring pharma and device-makers to report their payments to doctors, joining Eli Lilly, which gave the legislation a thumbs-up last week. Trade associations PhRMA (drugs) and Advamed (devices) have also expressed support.

The outpouring of support began after the bill's sponsors--Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Herb Kohl--bumped up the minimum disclosure amount to $500 from $25. It also helped that they added language specifically preempting state disclosure rules--now in force in Vermont and Minnesota, and on the drawing board elsewhere.

Interestingly, Schering-Plough isn't among those backing the bill. In fact, the company expressly denied its support in a letter to the sponsors. The reason? That information might undermine the relationship between patients and doctors, the company says. We'll see if it changes its tune: The letter said execs "remain open to new information or points of view."

- check out the release from the Senate Special Committee on Aging
- read the item at the WSJ Health Blog
- see Pharmalot's take

Lilly shakes up management structure

Tracy Staton — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:00:52 -0400

New CEO last month, new management structure this month. Eli Lilly chief John Lechleiter (photo) is reshuffling the company's leadership, hoping to cut management layers and improve accountability. Apparently, he asked senior management to weigh in, then came up with this bureaucracy-busting plan: global regulatory, medical, and patient safety divisions will combine under one manager, Dr. Tim Garnett, who'll be VP and chief medical officer. Two new VPs--for regulatory affairs, Dr. Jen Stotka; and for patient safety, Dr. Don Therasse--will report to Garnett. European operations also are getting streamlined, with Karin Bitar taking over as president of that area. In the U.S., there will be two divisional VPs instead of four; the two remaining will be organized by customer groups, i.e. healthcare professionals and healthcare payers. The changes will help Lilly "respond more quickly to critical business needs," Lechleiter said in a statement.

Other executive changes were announced, too: Tim Franson, VP of global regulatory affairs, is retiring, and Alan Breier, the former chief medical officer, is going to Indiana University as a psychiatry professor. The organizational changes will start to take effect immediately, with the new structure up and running by July 1.

- see the Lilly release
- read the story in the Wall Street Journal
- check out the Chicago Tribune article
- find the Indy Star's coverage

Eli Lilly's Sidney Taurel - CEO Pay

Tracy Staton — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:55:07 -0400

Sidney Taurel- Eli Lilly

Total Compensation: $13M

2007 Revenue: $15.7B
2006 Revenue: $18.6B
Change: -15%

Details: Taurel earned $1.7 million in base salary in 2007, up from $1.6 million in 2006. However, his overall pay was down, from $15.2 million in 2006 to $13 million last year. He pulled in $7.04 million in stock and options, $4 million in incentives, and $215.044 in other compensation, which included $107,105 for use of the company's aircraft.

Eli Lilly News:
In speech, Lilly CEO calls for drug monitoring
Lilly's Lechleiter: 'We're a biotech'
Lilly joins pharma's new-CEO club
Lilly developing biotech drugs the old-fashioned way