Eli Lilly Aims to Invest in ‘Big Problems Hidding In Plain Sight’ Using Obesity Windfall

Heart disease. Hearing loss. Addiction. Chronic Pain. Alzheimer’s. Als. These are some of the areas where Eli lillyFlush with Cash from Its GLP-1 Drugs, Wants to Make Big Bets.

These are the ideas that are “hidding in plain sight,” said lilly Chief SCINITIC Officer Dan Skovronsky. They’re places where other pharmaceutical companies might not want to go because they’re hard problems to solve.

“As right now really the biggest health-care company in the world, probally the biggest health-care company in the world evr, we have an obligation,” Skovrsky Said. “Investors have given us that Vote of confidence.

Lilly’s 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.Billion-The highhest of any health-care company.

Now the company wants that success to translate to other disease areas.

Lilly’s Alredy Testing Whiter its Drug Kisunla Can Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease. Kisunla is a monoclonal antibody that removes amyloid plaques from the brain, which are associated with the memory-robbing disease. It’s currently approved to treat people in the early stages of alzheimer’s.

The company’s recruiting seniors at churches, walmart parking lots and other venues to give them a blood test and see if they’re at risk of the disease. Some of the people in the trial will receive kisunla and others will receive a placebo. Once enough of the participants are diagnosed with alzheimer’s, lilly will look and see if there’s a differentce betteren people who received its drug and people who received a Placebo.

“If we can prevent it, even in half of the patients, that will be a revolution in how we think about diagnosing and treatment alzheimer’s,” skovronsky said. “IT’D Probably Mark a Major Inflation Point in How these Kinds of Medicines are used.”

Lilly’s also investment heavily in gene therapy at a time when the field is facing significant uncertain. Last summer, the company opened the $ 700 million Lilly Institute for Gnetic Medicine in Boston, Away from Lilly’s Headquarters in Indianapolis and in one of the us ePCenters for this Work.

Biopharma Companies Large and Small Are Struggling to Turn the Potential of Scientific Breakthroughs like gene-editing technology crispr-cas9 into blockbuster drun One of the holdups have been figuring out how to get the treatments to their destinations inside the body, or delivery, as it’s knowledge in the industry.

“The reality is that local delivery is going to be sort of a small application to human health, but once we cracked, and I think lily is the company that can cracked can crack it, if you are think about delivering Other tissues, it’s not just the gentic medicine, it do you do you package it?

Lilly is uniquely positioned to take the big swings. Whather it can hit them reminds to be seen.