INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Eli Lilly and Company today announced that the company provided more than $511 million in global philanthropy in 2005 -- the highest yearly total for philanthropic donations in the company’s 130 year history.
“In a year of urgent needs, Lilly and its employees stepped forward with extraordinary efforts,” said Sidney Taurel, Lilly’s chairman and chief executive officer. “To ease the suffering of hurricane and earthquake victims, we gave essential medicines, cash, and supplies. To ensure that seniors and low-income patients had affordable access to drugs, we offered six patient assistance programs. And to halt the spread of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, we partnered with the World Health Organizations and other groups to share expertise, improve treatment, and save lives.”
Lilly’s contributions included more than $453 million (U.S. net wholesale price) worth of product donations for patient assistance programs or international humanitarian causes. Lilly and its philanthropic foundation also gave nearly $58 million in cash donations for a number of urgent or special causes, including disaster relief. That total included matches for employee donations that aided disaster relief efforts in the wake of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and the devastating earthquakes near the Pakistan-India border.
In central Indiana, Lilly employees donated to United Way charities, with their contributions combined with matches from the Lilly Foundation totaling $9.2 million. Lilly’s giving represents approximately 25 percent of the Central Indiana United Way’s 2005 funding goal.
Urgent Needs Require Answers That Matter
As Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August, Lilly quickly mobilized to deliver medicines directly to the disaster zone. “This storm left profound devastation in its wake, and we wanted to do our part to help those in need,” said Robert Smith, Lilly Foundation president. “Given the scope of the disaster, the private sector was able to play a critically important role in relief efforts.”
Lilly dispatched a corporate jet filled with 1,600 pounds of supplies, including 800 vials of insulin and 1,700 doses of tetanus vaccines, to Mobile, Alabama. From there, the U.S. Coast Guard helped rush the medicines to a hospital in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Barely 70 hours earlier, Katrina’s eye passed directly over the site.
In the weeks following the hurricane, Lilly found ways to deliver medicines and supplies to more than 40 communities across 10 states touched by Katrina.
Access to Medicines and Improved Health Outcomes
To ensure that patients who couldn’t pay for them had access to Lilly’s medicines, the company donated products through six patient assistance programs that last year helped more than 410,000 people. Lilly Cares, which offers free medicines to patients who can’t pay for them, assisted 176,000 participants, while LillyAnswers provided low-cost prescriptions to 230,000 Medicare-enrolled customers. Other assistance programs helped customers gain reimbursement or access to drugs that battle cancer, severe sepsis, osteoporosis, and diabetes.
Also in 2005, the Lilly Foundation funded a multi-year initiative with the National Urban League to create a wide spectrum of health and wellness initiatives, helping to improve the quality of health care for African- Americans across the nation.
“Whether they are patients needing access to affordable health care or survivors of a disaster, we do our best to ensure that people in need are not forgotten,” said Taurel. “Our founders established these values nearly 130 years ago, and we live by them today.”
Lilly has historically been one of America’s most philanthropic companies. In 2003, BusinessWeek magazine ranked Lilly as the nation’s most generous corporate donor of in-kind gifts as a percentage of total revenues. The company was ranked fifth in terms of cash donations as a percentage of total revenues.
Learn More About Lilly
The depth and breadth of Lilly’s corporate citizenship, plus the challenges that lie ahead, are outlined in a full report at www.lilly.com/about/citizenship.
There, you can learn more about how Lilly is earning society’s trust by establishing the first online clinical trial registry (www.lillytrials.com); working to improve the industry’s good promotional practices and code of ethics; respecting the environment; partnering with world health leaders to combat MDR-TB with the goal of treating 20,000 patients annually by 2010 (www.lillymdr-tb.com); and implementing a broad range of other programs that improve the lives of patients every day.
Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of first-in-class and best-in-class pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers -- through medicines and information -- for some of the world’s most urgent medical needs. Additional information about Lilly is available at www.lilly.com.
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CONTACT: Edward Sagebiel of Eli Lilly and Company, +1-317-433-9899
