Eli Lilly - Legacy

Legacy

By 1898, Lilly's namesake company had a product line of 2,005 items and annual sales over $300,000 ($7,736,400 in 2009 chained dollars). Josiah Lilly inherited the company following his father's death, and continued to build the company before passing it on to his own sons, Eli Lilly and Josiah K. Lilly Jr. Josiah and his two sons continued the philanthropy practiced by Lilly and later established the Lilly Endowment that in 1998 became the largest philanthropic endowment in the world in terms of assets and charitable giving; it has since been surpassed but still remains in the top ten. The company played an important role in delivering medicine to the victims of the devastating 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Lilly's company has since grown into one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and under Lilly’s grandson's leadership developed many new innovations, including the pioneering and development of insulin during the 1920s, the mass production of penicillin during the 1940s, and the promotion of advancements in the mass production of medicines. Innovation continued at the company after it was made a publicly traded corporation in 1952, and it developed Humulin, Merthiolate, Prozac, and many other medicines. According to Forbes, Eli Lilly & Co. was the 229th largest company in the world and 152nd in the United States in 2007, with a worth of $17 billion (USD). It is the largest corporation and the largest charitable benefactor in Indiana.

Lilly's greatest contributions were his standardized and methodical creation of drugs, his dedication to research and development, and the actual value of the drugs he created. He pioneered the modern pharmaceutical industry, and many of his innovations later became standard practice. His ethical reforms, in a trade that was marked by outlandish claims of miracle medicines, began a period of rapid advancement in the development of medicinal drugs. During his lifetime, Lilly had advocated for federal regulation on medicines, and his son continued that advocacy after his father's death.

The Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum, located below the Sailors' and Soldiers' Monument in Indianapolis, is named in Lilly's honor. It opened in October 1999 and features exhibits about Indiana during the war period and the war in general.