Eli Lilly is consolidating its U.S. and international commercial divisions into a unified department, tapping current U.S. head Ilya Yuffa in a newly created role as president of Lilly Global Markets.
The new executive vice president role oversees customer strategy and execution worldwide, and the combination will take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
Patrik Jonsson, who currently leads Lilly’s ex-U.S. markets as president of Lilly International since 2025, will retire at the end of 2026 after a 36-year career at the Indianapolis pharma.
In its Oct. 28 announcement, Lilly reasoned that bringing U.S. and international commercial teams together “will accelerate decision-making, increase scalability and provide a unified capability to improve human health through expanded access to medicines around the world.”
“To build on our momentum, now is the right time to consolidate our geographies for greater impact,” Lilly’s CEO David Ricks said in a statement. “Ilya has run both our international and U.S. businesses, and his range of experience and commitment to excellence make him uniquely qualified to lead our customer-facing operations worldwide.”
Yuffa, another long-time Lilly vet, joined the company in 1996 as a financial analyst. During the 30 years since, he has held a wide range of leadership roles across finance, business development, sales and general management, some of which Jonsson had also worked in. Yuffa was president of Lilly International before leading Lilly USA. He was once president of the since split-up Lilly Bio-Medicines, which later became two separate units specialized in neuroscience and immunology.
Jonsson was once president of Lilly USA, too, and also served as president of Lilly Bio-Medicines. He joined Lilly in 1990 as a sales representative in Sweden. His other past stints at the company include several country leadership roles in Europe and Japan, as well as head of the company’s key cardiometabolic health business before becoming president of Lilly International last year.
In his statement, Ricks described Jonsson as a “patient-focused, engaging team leader who has mentored countless colleagues.”
The move led to a domino effect of internal personnel reshuffling. Yuffa’s U.S. leadership role will be filled by Laura Steele, currently head of U.S. cardiometabolic health. Elias Khalil, currently general manager of Lilly’s Italy Hub, which covers multiple nations including Italy, Israel and some Central and Eastern European countries, will be promoted to president of Lilly Europe and Canada.
The restructuring comes as Lilly has entered a fast-growth period, thanks to its GLP-1 diabetes and obesity franchise. In the second quarter, Lilly’s U.S. revenue increased 33% to $14.4 billion, driven by its tirzepatide-based Mounjaro and Zepbound, which are currently the leading GLP-1 obesity brands in the U.S.
Outside the U.S., revenue jumped 80% to $8.6 billion during the three months despite a 36% decrease in realized prices.
Lilly is unifying its commercial decision-making geographically as the Trump administration’s “most favored nation” drug pricing policy simultaneously reshapes the global markets of medicines, requiring a more concerted strategy between the U.S. and ex-U.S. markets for biopharma companies.
In an interview with Reuters earlier this summer, Jonsson flagged that “MFN will play a role for all launches.” For its new oral obesity drug Foundayo, which just won an approval recommendation from the European Medicines Agency, Lilly plans to focus its initial launch on the direct-to-consumer market. The company will still seek reimbursement from Europe’s public health systems, Jonsson said, but it would take MFN into consideration when negotiating reimbursed prices.
Lilly, along with 25 other biopharma companies, has signed an MFN deal with the Trump administration, offering new drugs at prices benchmarked against a basket of high-income countries.