Eli Lilly is the first pharma company to take first place in both categories in the eight years that intelligence firm IDEA Pharma has put out its analysis. Skyrocketing sales and multiple FDA approvals helped the company shoot to the top.
Eli Lilly is this year’s undisputed pharma R&D leader, emerging as the industry’s best inventor and innovator.
That’s according to industry intelligence firm IDEA Pharma, which for eight years now has been rating drugmakers based on how well they can take a theoretical small molecule drug through early and clinical development and successfully execute a commercial strategy for the product.
IDEA defines invention as a company’s ability to combine novel ideas and technologies “to create something that did not exist before,” according to the firm’s 2026 Global Pharmaceutical Innovation & Invention Index, published May 12. The invention index also assesses the “breadth and depth” of drugmakers’ pipeline, looking at “who is developing medicines that matter.”
Innovation, on the other hand, is how well a company can create meaningful value returns from its invention.
This year, Lilly is the clear winner on both fronts. This is the pharma’s second year as the innovation leader, a distinction supported by a 45% year-on-year (YoY) surge in its annual earnings, which hit nearly $65.2 billion in 2025. The pharma’s incretin products are “central” to its performance, according to IDEA, pointing to a 99% YoY growth in Mounjaro sales to $23 billion and a 175% YoY increase in Zepbound revenue to $13.5 billion.
Lilly reinvested the financial gains from its incretin franchise into its development pipeline, giving the pharma a big boost to its 2026 invention rating. Last year, Lilly was sixth on IDEA’s leaderboard.
“Building on its core metabolic franchise, Lilly continues to expand across oncology, neuroscience and immunology,” IDEA said earlier this month. “The rise on the Invention Index is underpinned by continued early pipeline investment and strategic transactions.”
Key pipeline wins for Lilly include the approval of its weight-loss pill Foundayo, the label expansion of Omvoh into Crohn’s disease and the approval of Inluriyo in breast cancer, according to IDEA. The firm also pointed to Lilly’s acquisition of Verve Therapeutics and SiteOne Therapeutics as contributors to the pharma’s improved invention rating.
Trailing Lilly is Merck, which kept its second-place innovation rank from last year, driven by the continued strong performance of cornerstone cancer therapy Keytruda and bolstered by the growth of its pulmonary hypertension drug Winrevair and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medicine Ohtuvayre, according to IDEA.
Meanwhile, Merck jumped two places to fifth on the invention ranking, driven by its cholesterol-lowering pill enlicitide, along with improvements in its infectious disease pipeline, anchored by the $9.2 billion acquisition of Cidara Therapeutics.
Another standout company on IDEA’s ranking is Sanofi, which skyrocketed 19 spots to third place on the innovation index, while dropping five notches to 17th on the invention ranking. GSK ranked fourth on innovation, followed by Regeneron.
