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Eli Lilly Confirms Layoffs

December 14, 2007

Eli Lilly will lay off employees, Chairman and CEO Sidney Taurel said, without indicating how many would lose their jobs or how much money the company would save.

Taurel mentioned the layoffs as part of what he called a change in the company’s business model. Eli Lilly will reduce its fixed infrastructure while seeking to increase flexibility, lower costs and risks and use six-sigma quality techniques to continuously improve performance, he said.

The company will increasingly focus on tailored therapeutics for individual patients. As an example, Taurel cited the company’s upcoming FDA submission for its cardiovascular drug prasugrel “where a tailored dose may provide a more favorable outcome for specific patient subpopulations.”

Eli Lilly is predicting that seven of its products will reach sales of $1 billion or more in 2008 and that it will introduce six new products by the end of 2011. Investment in R&D, productivity gains and aggressive dealmaking have resulted in what the company said is an unprecedented 44 new molecular entities under development.