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David A. Ricks

David A. Ricks

CEO of Eli Lilly

Aug 31, 2026

17:21
I mean, what does Eli Lilly look like? Obviously right now it's GLP-1s and that's dominant, but what sort of company are you trying to build here in the long term?
17:31
Yeah, well, of course, you know, Montero and Zephown have been huge drivers of our success.
17:35
Right now, about 65% of the company is in the obesity, weight loss, diabetes space.
17:41
The other 35% is growing nicely as well.
17:44
So our long-term strategy is twofold.
17:46
One, make that obesity franchise more durable.
17:49
That's about innovation primarily, Sarah.
20:27
I mean, since we're at G20, do you think of the GLP-1 revolution? It's obviously incredible for health, but do you think of it as an economic transformation as well, just in terms of how much it will impact things like insurance and consumer behavior, labor perhaps?
15:45
Talk a little bit about those opposing forces and your view more holistically about it.
15:50
Yeah, I don't see them as opposing.
15:52
So ju-just, uh, f- ground in facts, it is true, uh, I think the list price of the highest price form of Zepbound or Mounjaro is ten eighty-six, so one thousand eighty-six dollars.
16:03
That's the list price.
16:04
Almost nobody pays that.
16:06
Actually, um, pretty much nobody pays that.
16:08
Um, we have lowered, uh, and Lilly launched this program called Lilly Direct almost two years ago, which basically, um, the healthcare system, without going down a rabbit hole unless you want to, you know, is this system where the biggest actors get the lowest price and the individuals pay the most.

12 MINS LATER

28:19
In your mind, what is Lilly's competitive advantage as a culture, as a company? And when you speak to shareholders and say, "Okay, it's up five-fold, but stick with us, there's more running room because we are, you know, we are great at X, Y, and Z," how do you differentiate from the rest of your competitors?
5:00
Like, how did this drug category get kicked off through the lens of Eli Lilly?
5:06
Yeah, well, it-- I think this is like great cocktail party intro because I, I get this question all the time.
5:12
Um, and everyone knows the story, and I think you've even told the story of the HeLa monsters, and we'll get to that in a second.
5:18
But the real first, like, scientific breakthrough that happened was in the early '70s.
5:22
There were actually two papers that looked at something that was called, at that point, the incretin effect.
5:27
And now incretin is what we call this class of hormones or, or proteins that your gut excretes, like GLP-1.
5:34
Um, and what was noticed was that if you ingested food or calories of any kind, um, orally through your GI tract versus intravenously, there were very different, uh, amounts of, um, that nutrient that, that would spike in your blood and would be absorbed or not absorbed effectively.

24 MINS LATER

29:37
What are you investing in the most here right now?

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