Eli Lilly had tried and failed at several business ventures before founding a new pharmaceutical goods company in 1876. Patent medicines, brewed and peddled by slick hucksters, were the predominant pharmaceuticals of the period. Lilly instead offered “ethical” medications, dispensed solely on the advice of authentic physicians.

His first products were entirely herbal preparations, extracted from Bear’s Foot, Black Haw, Cramp Bark, Hardhack, Life Root, Skullcap, Sea Wrack, Squaw Vine, Wahoo, and Wormseed. The company rapidly developed an excellent reputation, both for the quality of the products and the generosity and community spirit of its founder.

In 1921, Eli Lilly & Co. offered to work with Canadian physician Frederick Banting to develop large-scale production techniques for insulin. Banting and graduate student Charles Best’s experiments showed that animal pancreas extractions injected into a severely diabetic dog successfully regulated the dog’s sugar metabolism. University of Toronto scientists created a purer extract but could not produce it in large quantities.

In 1922, Lilly scientists broke the production impasse with the development of iso-electric precipitation procedures for insulin. The new technique greatly increased manufacturing yields and improved purity, potency, and stability of the product.

By 1923, full-scale production of insulin was perfected. The name Iletin was registered, and the first commercial insulin in the world became available from Eli Lilly and Company.

Bioanalytical Systems, Inc.