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Dave Ricks · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: One of the most transformative drugs on the market today
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: are anti obesity drugs. One of the leaders in producing
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: those drugs is Eli Lilly. It has transformed itself over
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the last five years to accompany that's now the most
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: valuable pharmaceutical company in the world. I sat down with
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Dave Rix recently to talk about it's anti obesity phenomenon
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and how it is transforming America. Let's talk about these
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: phenomenon that's changed the world to some extent. Which is
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the anti obesity drug?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Now? To make sure everybody's on the.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Same page links, what is the name of your anti
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: obesity drug?
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, so the name is zep bound. The active ingredients
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: called their zepetide.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: So, by the way, who comes up with these names?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Where do you raise names? Not me, David me.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: We can't have names that are similar to each other
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: because doctors make prescribing hers. We can't have names that
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: make claims about what the drug does, and we can't
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: have names that only work in English.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: So we end up with these sounding names.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: When was that discovered and is that ever the intention
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: when the drug was being developed?
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty early on. So we launched the first GLP
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: one medication in the world.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: In two thousand and five. It was called exendotide.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: It was a twice daily injection and it was indicated
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: for people with diabetes. But that was the first effort.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: On the cover of our the next year, our annual
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: report is a woman who was using the drug and
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: she said, my diabetes is under control, and I noticed
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I'm losing a little weight. Actually two thousand and six,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: it's a cover of our anal report. But we had
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: to improve the medicines to really make them effective for
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: weight loss. One big improvement was to make them weekly.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: That's a convenience benefit, but even more important, the.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Action of the.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Medicine flatter, meaning more consistent through the day and night.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: When we had it twice a day, there were ups
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and downs, and one effect of GLP one medications is
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: they cause nausea and other gi distress. That's a function
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: of the up and down in your system. So when
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: we made weekly, it was flatter and we could dose
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: higher to see.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: More weight loss.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: So that was sort of an accidental breakthrough of trying
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: to make a more convenient form.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Now there's another company that is sort of in the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: same business.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: No Vote Nor it is Yes.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Which is in Denmark, and they have a similar product,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and they have a product that does the same thing.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: One is for obesity anti obesity, and one is for.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Diabetes and correct. Is there really any difference in terms
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: of the drugs.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: There are.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: There's no difference really between the name the drug that's
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: named for diabetes versus name for obesity for either company.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: We do that for insurance reasons we could talk about.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But tre Zeppetide is the latest version. It has two
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: modes of action. So right now, because you just ate lunch,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: your GI track is communicating with the rest of your body.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: It's communicating with hormones or proteins and telling it that
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: you've been fed and you need to absorb nutrients and
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: other things that are essentible life because food is essential life.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: What we're doing boosting some of those signals with these medications.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: They're boosting the signal that you're full, boosting the signal
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: that you no longer want to eat more, and boosting
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: signals that you should absorb nutrients that you've consumed. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: so ours does that with two different hormones, one called
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: GLP one another new one called gip ozepic or semaglue
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: tide just uses GLP one.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: But what the drug does is what it tells your
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: body you're full. When you're maybe not as full as
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you used to be.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: It tells your body you're full, and it does that
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: to the brain sense of saiety. Probably we've learned over
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: time our sense of fullness becomes conditional. So as people
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: eat more habitually, that signal kicks in later and later,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and that's a cause and consequence of obesity.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: It does other things too.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: It actually makes your stomach fuller because it slows gastric motility,
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: so it slows down your nutrients, which seems counterintuitive, but
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: when you eat in when our ancestors were alive ten
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: thousand years ago, meals were rare and you want to
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: absorb all the nutrients out of it. So that signal said,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: absorb the nutrients all right.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I don't want to confuse people, but there are four
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: different names that people should know for these drugs. Now
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you have an ANTIBCD drug which is called what zepounepbound,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and then you have a diabetes drug which is.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Called manjarro, same medicine, suferent names.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: There was a study that was just came out a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: couple of days ago. I think that said one on
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: one comparing the two. Your drug anti OBEs drug loses
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: weight more rapidly for people than the other product.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Rapidly?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: And more so forty seven percent more so After a
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: year and a half, roughly, people on our drug loss
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: seventeen more pounds.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Then on we go.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Why do people need to lose so much weight in
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: this country? Our country has, as I got it right,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the people are overweight and forty
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: two percent are obese. When it all of a sudden
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: we become so obese?
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you look at the epidemiology charts, it really
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: seems to started in the sixties growth in overweight and
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: obesity in the country, and really accelerated in the eighties
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: and nineties.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: What are the reasons?
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: How we live certainly is one of them, and energy
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: expenditure has to be part of the story. What we eat, though,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: is probably a more important reason, not just the quantity
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: which has risen modestly through that period of time, but
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: actually what's in our food has changed, and I think
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: that's also attributed to this.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: All right, So back to the drug. When you realized
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: they could lose weight. Did you get the FDA to say, yes,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: it can be prescribed for losing weight, or it's still
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: you can't get that prescribed for you.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: No.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: No. As of last year, we have found launched it's
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: for weight loss.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: And do insurance companies reimburse people for the cost of
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: these drugs?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Some do, more should so as of today, the federal
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: government actually has a prohibition on reimbursing any of these drugs, which.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: Is a problem.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I think although the Biden administration just as advanced rulemaking
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: to change that. That's good news, and we hope the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: next administration will continue that process.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So if losing weight makes you healthier, why would people
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: who care about insurance reimbursement medicare and not insist on
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: paying for this because it would make you healthier and
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: therefore you don't have other diseases yet that they have
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to reimburse you for.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I think in four or five years we'll look back
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: and say, yeah, that's what should have happened, and it's
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: silly that we don't pay for what is already known
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: to be a primary contributor to poor health, which is
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: excess body weight. But you know, do people have different
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: motives and incentives. Maybe your employer has a stronger interest
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: in your long term health. That's probably why many have
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: stepped forward.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: And then evidence.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Our job is to make the evidence produce the evidence
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: that we're not just having people lose weight, but losing
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: weight with our medicine causes improved health. And we have
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: many studies out this year that are demonstrating that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So to take this medicine, you have to inject yourself
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: for less.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well why not just go to a pill?
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: A great idea. Yeah, we're working on that.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: The injection you have to inject because it's a protein
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: and if we orally take proteins, your body thinks it's
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: food and it breaks up proteins. So you cannot really
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: take these drugs oily. You have to bypass the GI
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: track even though it's affecting, and go right to the bloodstream.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: But we are working on a pill. We'll have some
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: data actually as early as next year. It's a GLP
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: one only it's a single acting It's not going to
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: be as good as trs appetite as that bound. It
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: be about as good as oozempic, we hope, and this
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: would be a once daily pill.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Some people say that if you go on this drug,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you have side effects that are not completely desirable.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Is that true?
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: All drugs that work have side effects and sometimes on
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: twitter effects, and we have to warn against both of those.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: That's why we do controlled studies and measure them carefully.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Many people have mild to moderate GI distress when they start.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: That's why we ty trate. We started a low dose.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: We recommend a low dose and go up slowly. Almost
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: everybody stays on the dr and goes through that and
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: by the third or fourth month really don't have any
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: effects any more of.
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  Speaker 4: That at all.
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  Speaker 1: Let's suppose you take the drug and say, I've lost weight,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I'm very happy with my body.
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  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to get off the drug.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Some people say that there are it's very difficult to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: not regain the weight.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: That's right, and science tells us that there's a reason
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: for that. Some people do maintain the weight reduction or
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: stay in that range. They have to change a lot
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: about how they live, burn more energy, eat different foods.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: So we can all try that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: I think we should all try that, actually, but some
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: people cannot. And there's a recent paper in Nature that
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: actually told us why, which is that once you have
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: become obese, your fat sales learned that that's their new
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: state and they defend that state, and so they're actually
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: wanting more energy and that sends signals to your brain
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: and so forth. So once we as adults gain weight
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: and have that on for a while, it's very very
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: difficult to reset your thermostat if you would to reset
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: that level. So for now we do recommend if they
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: can't people cannot maintain weight loss off the drug, to
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: go back on the drugs and use them chronically.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Eli Lilly itself. When was his company started.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Eighteen seventy six, So started by a Colonel Eli Lilly who.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Served in the Civil War.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: He was a pharmacist by training, led an infantry and
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: artillery company, and was a prisoner of war in Alabama actually,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: and he saw firsthand the atrocities of medical care in
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: the Civil War. So he started a company with a
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: pledge to say everything that's in this is.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: On the label. If it's in there, you know about it. Transparency.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And that then evolved into a company that embraced the
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: scientific method and began to really adopt the methods that
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the modern industry has, which is then taking natural products,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: which is what most medicines were in eighteen seventy six,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: and refining them into what we think of as a medicine. Now.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: When Eli Lilly evolved over the years in the twentieth century,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: what were its big product?
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so insulin really was the birth of the modern company.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: And this was obviously a terrible condition, type one diabetes
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: and a breakthrough, and we were part of commercializing that
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: around the world, invented the manufacturing method and created that
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: business that was followed by actually penicillin. So during World
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: War Two, Lily was commissioned as one of the manufacturers
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: for antibiotics for the army and we from there then
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: iterated for forty years antibiotics, including still some that are
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: used today like bankamasin, which is the last line of
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: defense for the worst infections. Prozac we're famous for, which
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: has really brought modern psychiatry into the fold.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: And of course, now manjar O.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And zep bound, what are the human problems you're working
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: on in the future. Alzheimer's, I assume is one of them.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, So we think about our company. Of course,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: we use scientific methods to create medicines to solve tough problems.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: We're not really interested in niche problems. We think we're
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: here because we're a big company to do hard problems
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: that are scalable. That's sort of where makes our business work,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: but also is the most human impact. So we select
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: these diseases that are common and tough. So you mentioned Alzheimer's,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: NERD degenerative conditions or the most frightening conditions. Most people
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: think about Parkinson's als Alzheimer's and the science. We've been
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: investing there for thirty years. We just launched our first
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: medicine and so now we're getting revenue after thirty years
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: on that project, and we're working on a prevention study
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: for that same medicine, which could really transform Alzheimer's. We
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: think other NERD to generic conditions like Parkinson's, als, et cetera,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: are becoming more tractable with science, and you'll see us
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: invest heavily in that area going forward.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Are you concerned about the new administration coming into power?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Have you met with President electromp talk about your issues.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Healthcare is always a topic and so then our role
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: in it and medicine affordability is a key area.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: I think everyone would like.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: The US have a strong biopharma industry that have beens
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: amazing medicines like setbound and makes them here like Lily does.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, we want our things to
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: be cheap and.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Accessible to all.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's hard to solve for all those things, but
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: we can make progress. Like one example is we were
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: known for the insulin pricing challenges we had, and insulin
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: was overpriced in the US, according to the critics, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: we were able to bring that price down. I think
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: there are solutions and by engaging we can find them.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Have you met with anybody in the new administration yet?
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I think it was reported last week we had a
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: dinner down in Florida.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: How was that, Like, did they serve up fattening food
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: or they don't do that with you?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Probably shouldn't say too much about it, but it was
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: all you could imagine and a little bit more.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about your own background. Where were you born?
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: I was born in Bloomington, Indiana, So who's your by birth?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: But my dad was a grad student at IU at
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: the time, and we quickly left.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: And moved to California.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: My mom was from California and I grew up in
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: the Bay Area and then followed in their footsteps and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: went to Purdue University back in Indiana.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And what did you study there?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: So I started studying business and engineering, ended up with
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: a degree industrial management, which combines those two. I went
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: to work for IBM in New York. I joined the
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: stock wasn't an all time hime when I left, it
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: was an all time low. They had a tough time
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: in the early nineties.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: She went to join ELI Lilly in what year?
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: So I left IBM to follow my girlfriend who's now
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: my wife, who was going to medical school at Indiana University.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: So again back to Indiana, and I needed somebody to
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: do there, so I decided to enroll in their MBA
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: program and I got an MBA. Of course, medicine's a
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: four year degree, NBA's two. So I still needed somebody
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: to do in Indiana, so I joined Lily.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: What was your position at the beginning?
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in the department that looked at M
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: and A transactions in the finance and Business Development group
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: and the great introduction to.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: The Did you ever say I'm going to be the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: CEO someday or something like that?
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Not?
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Then I actually really was thinking I'll be here for
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: two years and then we'll be off to Chicago or
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: San Francisco and do something different.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: But I fell in love with the company.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's an amazing place. It's a very humanistic culture,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: but yet very rigorous and scientific, so it's demanding smart people,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: but people are nice.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: To each other.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: It's the Midwest, and I fell in love with the mission,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: which is what could be better than making medicine for people.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I worked on a medicine to collaborate and bring into
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: the company for diabetes, and right as I was leaving
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: that job, my mother was diagnosed with diabetes and she
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: was put on that medicine, and so the sort of
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the point of what we do just became super salient
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: for me, and I said, this is not a bad
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: way to spend my time.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: And I said to my wife, let's stay here.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: When did you realize that you were on a track
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: to be the CEO?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Was it five years post? For later?
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: So I worked in that job, and then I had
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: some jobs running markets. I ran our Canadian business and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: then went to China for two and a half years
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: and ran our Chinese business. And I was suddenly called
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: back from China by the CEO who was a new CEO,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: and he said you need to come run our US business.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And said, John, do't you want me to finish the job?
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: He said, you need to come back. I think that
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: was the point where I was sort of being cultivated
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: for big something bigger.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: You now have three children, Yeah, for a while.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I've had three children. Yea, Yes, they're young adults.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Now, okay, all right, But are any of them interested
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: in weight reduction programs or things like.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: That or not really?
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Well, so my son, he's an AI consultant, so not
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: so much. My daughter is actually getting master's in sell
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: biology and interested in med school, so she's thinking about
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: medicine and medical science. And we talk a lot about
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the weight loss drugs. And my youngest son is a
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: geology student that produe, so we'll see what he does.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So what do you do for relaxation to stay in shape?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: You're not on one of these drugs? I think because
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you look very fit and exercise a lot.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah I'm not, but I would never hesitate to be
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: on one if I needed it. But the best medicine
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: is prevention, and so you know, paying attention to exercise
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: is something I've always cared about It's a way I
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: reduce stress too. So I loved running, and now I
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: don't run anymore, but I do other things like hiking.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I love backcountry skiing and the outdoors, play golf. Being
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: outside is where I find both fitness and peace.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You've had an astounding success at ELI, Lelly. Suppose a
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: president of the United States said you should be the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: secretary of HHS or something like that, what would you say.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: You know, the company, as you've pointed out graciously, is
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: really doing well, but you know, we really have a
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: strong desire to do even more, and we're just at
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: the beginning of this weight loss story. You know, right
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: now there's six or seven million Americans who are taking
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: these medicines. There are one hundred and ten million with obesity.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: We need to build more plants and develop more data,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: get in better insurance coverage, and then there's the whole
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: world to cover. It's projected in five years there'll be
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: a billion people on the planet who have obesity, and
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: it's going to become a much bigger problem in the
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: developing world than it ever has been in America.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: When you have drugs that are very, very popular that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you often have people that make counterfeit or copycat drugs.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: What about for this do you have to worry about
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: counterfeit drugs coming in that are trying to say the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: It's a terrible problem right now, actually, because I think
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: consumers don't really know.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: The dangers or the difference.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Today, the FDA and the government has allowed this to
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: sort of grow.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: And of course a weight.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Loss medication that's effected would be a popular thing for
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: people to go around the healthcare system and seek treatment
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: on their own. But the data we have is that
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: eighty percent of these medicines are coming out of China
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: from unapproved and unregulated sources. We recently with Borders and
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Customs seized a big batch that was shipped in dog food.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: People then reformulate them and sell them locally in medspas
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: and other outfits. But you really don't know what's in
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: that vile We buy them and test them, we find bacteria,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: plant material, viruses, fungus.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: You do not want to be using.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But how much more expensive are your drugs than the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: counterfeit ones? In other words, if somebody wants to use
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: your product zep bound, how much does it cost a month?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: You can buy zepbound direct from Lily for three ninety
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: nine for the starter do.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Eight dollars and ninety nine cents.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: No, this is a valuable innovation, David. Three hundred and
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: ninety nine. Three hundred and ninety nine dollars a month,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: all right, which is about one hundred dollars a week.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And I know that's a sacrifice for many, but that's
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: without insurance. With insurance, most people pay twenty five dollars
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: a month. So that's the importance of insurance. That's why
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: we buy insurance to shield this from our health costs.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: The online ones, you know, are as cheap as one
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: hundred dollars. But these are companies that want all the
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: benefits of being a drug company but bear none other responsibilities.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the company today. How many employees
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: do you have?
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Forty four thousand.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And you're headquartered in Indianapolis, yes, correct? And where do
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: you manufacture your drugs? Are the most in the US
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: or mostly overseas.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Mostly in the US, a large majority in Europe as well,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: So those are our two big bases for production. And
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: in the US we're building lots of plants right now,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: mostly to support zep bound.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I'm Mancharro.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: When did you all realize this is so transformative that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you're going to become the most valuable pharmaceutical company in
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the world by a factor of four or five times.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: It's hard to know exactly what the scale of something is,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: but I will The story of churs epetit or zepbound
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: for me is this. In twenty sixteen, I was named
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: as the incoming CEO. In that fall, one of our
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: scientists in the diabetes group called me about some early
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: results they were receiving from singaporean site we had that
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: was doing a phase one study with churzepetite, the ingredient
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: and zepbound, and we had to stop the study because
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: people were losing too much weight to stay in it.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: And at first this was seen as like an alarming thing,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: but of course we began to process that is, wait
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: a minute, this could be something very special. So we
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: sped to the next stage of development, phase two, where
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: you try to show safety and efficacy in a bigger study.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: And I remember, in a kind of a moment, I
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: was showing my daughter around a college. We were at
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: cal Berkeley, standing outside of the Lawrence Hall of Science,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: and I got a phone call and the team just
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: got off the plane, got the results and showed that
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: people were losing over twenty percent body weight in a
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: longer study that was in April of eighteen.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: We disclosed those results later.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: That year, and you could probably argue a lot of
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the run up in Lily was just execution from that
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: moment forward.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Did you take the credit for this? Are you the
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: person responsible for this happening or not?
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Of course, as a CEO of a role in all this,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: but it would be way overstating the role if I
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: took credit. So the credit goes to the scientists to
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: begin with. We have a lot of incumbent capabilities, like
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: how do you take a protein like GLP one, which
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: in the natural body lasts only a few seconds and
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: make it into a week long injection. So that's a
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: pharmacology exercise that's difficult, and we have people who can
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: do that, and we have people who do the clinical
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: trials and everything else to see the opportunity and go
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: for it. We have people who make it every day
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: twenty four to seven. We run our factories. So it's
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: a giant team sport.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Where do you want to take your company now you
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: can't find any drug it's going to be more successful
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: than one you have is you're just going to keep
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: promoting this drug.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: First of all, within the obesity metabolic health space, I
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: think there's two things I'm very excited about. One is
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: we have tzepetide modros that found on the market. We
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: have eleven other pipeline projects aimed at the same problem
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: but in different ways.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: So we have a triple.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Acting medicine that's in phase three for those that have
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: even higher body weight or more severe health problems. We
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: have the Oral Project, nine others Beyond that, we think
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: this is going to be a very large segment with
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: many different types of medicines for different conditions and different
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: situations people might find themselves in.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: We're going to exploit that fully.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: The second thing is we've talked a lot about like
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: cardivascer health, diabetes, these conditions that wants to think about
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: with being overweight. But these medicines, we think and we
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: aim to prove, can be useful for other things we
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: don't think about connected to weight. These are often called
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: anti hedonic, so they are reducing that desire cycle. So
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: next year you'll see Lily start large studies and alcohol
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: abuse and nicotine use even in drug abuse. And then
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: beyond that, David, we need to make important medicines for
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the long haul or old company. We plan to be
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: here another one hundred and fifty years plus. And I
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: mentioned my excitement about brain health. I think that's really
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: the next frontier.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen