Going Beyond Medicines

All people want to be healthy. That’s why our business at Lilly is to develop new medicines for unmet patient needs.

But many times, it’s hard for people to take the medicines they need consistently—roughly half don’t—and manage their health conditions effectively. So now, Lilly is going beyond medicines.

We’re making new investments to help people with diabetes solve the health challenges they face—adhering to medicines, paying for care, getting better information about their disease and how they’re responding to treatment.

This is especially important in diabetes. Diabetes is a 24/7 disease. More than half the people taking insulin don’t feel confident they can handle the daily challenges of that therapy. There’s still a need to simplify the process.

So Lilly is creating a new solution that could allow people to more effectively manage their diabetes—both Type 1 and Type 2—through devices, software and self-care. We call it the Connected Diabetes Ecosystem.

It’s part of a broader trend of digital technology and medicine intersecting in ways that could improve people’s lives. Digital technology has already produced stand-alone tools for patients. But there is much greater potential with an integrated approach.

Currently, physicians check a patient’s blood sugar once a month or so during an office visit. But Lilly’s system could send physicians a continuous stream of data on how people are adhering to their insulin and responding to it—allowing for better diagnosis and treatment.

The Connected Diabetes Ecosystem would also help personalize medical care—because not every person with diabetes responds to insulin, diet, stress and exercise in the same ways.

Connected Diabetes Ecosystem

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, we hope to bring the Connected Diabetes Ecosystem to patients in two to three years. It will include two systems—the first of which is designed to function as close as possible to the body’s pancreas. It includes:

1. insulin
2. a continuous blood glucose monitor (made by Dexcom Inc.)
3. an insulin pump (licensed from DEKA Research and Development Corp.)
4. software that communicates with both the monitor and the pump. It can collect a person’s past insulin doses and responses to those doses, as well as information about a person’s diet, stress and exercise patterns. It then can run those data through an algorithm (acquired from Class AP) to recommend the next dose—both the right amount of insulin and the right time.

Lilly is also developing a second system that would connect one of our insulin pens to a glucose monitor or other sensing device. It would also use our algorithm to recommend the right dose of insulin at the right time for a person to administer.

Lilly will test all the parts of the Connected Diabetes Ecosystem in clinical trials. We will also study whether the system helps patients and health plans save money by reducing severe hypoglycemic events caused by out-of-control blood sugar, which often send people with diabetes to the ER.

Next Stage of Innovation

What makes Lilly think it can go beyond the business of medicines? Because we are passionate about helping people with diabetes.

Lilly has been helping people with diabetes since 1923, when we were the first company to bring insulin to the U.S. market. We also launched the first biotech insulin in 1982 and the first human analog insulin in 1996.

That history has given us deep insights into the challenges people with diabetes face. It’s why since 2010 Lilly has branched out from insulin to now offer the widest range of diabetes products for patients’ variety of needs. It’s also why this year, Lilly joined the Blink Health and InsideRx programs, which offer 40 percent upfront discounts on our diabetes medicines—so the uninsured and people in high-deductible health plans aren’t forced to pay artificial sticker prices.

We certainly have more innovating to do—on all fronts—to make life better for patients. The Connected Diabetes Ecosystem is just the latest step in this journey. Of course, innovating new medicines will continue to be the core of our business. But we’ll also be looking for ways to go beyond.