This is where: Purdue and Lilly are partnering on a shared mission to improve lives worldwide

Purdue researchers and students in lab gear in a lab.

Purdue researchers and Eli Lilly and Company scientists are driven by a shared mission to create a better, healthier world (Purdue University photo/Rebecca Robiños)

This story highlights one of the many ways Purdue teams up with corporate partners to create solutions for complex global challenges. Learn how your organization can collaborate with us.

Celebrating the history and future of a transformative collaboration built on Indiana soil

History has shown that when Purdue University and Eli Lilly and Company join forces, lives are transformed. 

Together, these Indiana institutions are driving critical breakthroughs in drug discovery and pharmaceutical research, tackling some of the most complex challenges in modern health care and preparing the next generation of industry innovators. 

Today’s efforts are built on a partnership that spans more than a century, united by a shared mission to build a better world.

Six researchers work at various stations in a lab at Purdue.
With a focus on real-world applications, Purdue researchers collaborate with Lilly scientists to develop next-generation drug products designed for scalable manufacturing. (Purdue University photo/Rebecca Robiños)

A legacy of collaboration

In 1854 Eli Lilly, future founder of the company that shares his name, began an apprenticeship at the Good Samaritan Drug Store on Main Street in downtown Lafayette. Just 20 years later, Purdue welcomed its first class of students a few miles across the river. Two years after that, Lilly founded his company in a small building on Pearl Street in Indianapolis.  

Both organizations sprang up during a transformative era in U.S. history, growing alongside a nation brimming with ambition and innovation, each striving to shape lives in ways that still resonate today. Early on, both organizations recognized that the other would be a critical partner in their shared pursuit of a better, healthier world.

Lilly scientists and Purdue faculty and students have a tremendous opportunity to turn bold ideas into game-changing medicines, giving more people around the world a chance at better health.

Dave Ricks BS industrial management ’90 

In 1886, Eli Lilly and Company hired its very first chemist, Ernest Eberhardt — Purdue’s top graduate from the then-new School of Pharmacy — to lead the company’s first research program. Eberhardt helped shape the early days of drug discovery at Lilly, opening the doors for countless Purdue students to learn, grow and work at the company, including current Eli Lilly and Company CEO Dave Ricks (BS industrial management ’90). 

“As a Purdue graduate, I am proud of the university’s success and even more proud to see how the partnership between Lilly and Purdue strengthens both institutions,” Ricks says.

Continuing the momentum

In 2017, Purdue and Lilly entered a strategic collaboration to accelerate the discovery and development of new medicines. Today, over 50 researchers and more than 60 graduate students collaborate with Lilly scientists in the Eli Lilly and Company and Purdue University Research Alliance Center (LPRC). Current focus areas for the LPRC include: 

  • genetic medicine — using our own biologic building blocks to unlock new pathways to treatment and potentially cures 
  • intrathecal drug delivery — delivering medications directly into the spinal fluid to treat central nervous system conditions 
  • nanoparticle drug delivery — using microscopic particles to improve the delivery and effectiveness of drugs in the body 

Kurt Ristroph and his lab work within the LPRC on developing nanomaterials and nanoparticle formulations — extremely small carriers that move medicine throughout the body (about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair). Ristroph and his team of 20 postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduate students are especially focused on scalability and manufacturability in nanoparticle development. 

“We’re working to develop reproducible large-scale manufacturing techniques for these nanoparticle formulations for a lot of different drugs, for a lot of different diseases and for a lot of different routes of administration,” Ristroph says.

This focus on real-world application allows researchers like Ristroph and scientists at Lilly to create next-generation drug products that can be manufactured at scale. “That’s what makes Lilly a great partner for my group, because the work is so industry-oriented,” Ristroph says. 

Lilly has also collaborated with Purdue to build out tomorrow’s workforce in drug development. The Lilly Scholars at Purdue program is supported by a $42.5 million investment that awards up to 100 scholarships each year for talented undergraduate students who are interested in driving innovation in pharmaceutical research and manufacturing.  

Companies like Lilly can help researchers define the scope for real-world hard problems. If we come up with a solution for a properly defined problem, that maximizes the chance that it can be translated by the company into a product that helps the patient.

Kurt Ristroph Assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, chemical engineering (by courtesy)

These Lilly Scholars have the unique opportunity to complete a paid Lilly internship, participate in coursework on pharmaceutical careers and engage with Lilly leaders for networking, mentoring and professional development.

“This partnership for talent development is essential for Lilly as we embark on unprecedented growth that requires expertly trained professionals,” Ricks says.

Purdue, Lilly and pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Inc. recently collaborated to announce the launch of the ⁠Young Institute Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Consortium. The consortium is a collaborative effort to pioneer advances in making medicines with a focus on developing manufacturing technologies that will ensure quality, safety and compliance.

Making life better for millions around the world

Both Purdue and Lilly recognize that collaboration between academia and industry is essential for turning research into real-world impact that contributes to the evolution of medical science. 

“One of the ways giant leaps happen is when research gets translated. Companies like Lilly are the ones that do that translation,” Ristroph says. “My academic research can be as industry-oriented as I want, but unless a company picks it up and runs with it and is willing to take a risk on it, at the end of the day, the work we do isn’t going to help patients.”  

Purdue’s strengths in both pharmacy and engineering, along with support from Lilly, uniquely position the collaboration to support every phase of drug development — from the discovery of a molecule to the creation of effective formulations that turn that molecule into medicine and finally to the development of methods to manufacture and deliver the drug at scale.

“Companies like Lilly can help researchers define the scope for real-world hard problems. If we come up with a solution for a properly defined problem, that maximizes the chance that it can be translated by the company into a product that helps the patient,” Ristroph says. “That’s a recipe for giant leaps, I’d say.” 

By continuing to pursue collaborative research, scientific expertise in biology, pharmaceuticals and engineering, Purdue and Lilly hope to make life better for millions more people around the world.  

“Together we’ve helped turn scientific discoveries into practical, lifesaving therapies,” Ricks says. “With demand for our groundbreaking medicines continuing to grow, we’re forging ahead to advance scientific research and attract top talent here in Indiana. 

“Lilly scientists and Purdue faculty and students have a tremendous opportunity to turn bold ideas into game-changing medicines, giving more people around the world a chance at better health,” Ricks says.