Eli Lilly and Company logo. (PRNewsFoto) INDIANAPOLIS, IN UNITED STATES

  Support for Grassley-Kohl Bill Newest Addition to Lilly's 'Transparency
                                  Agenda'

    INDIANAPOLIS, May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today Eli Lilly and
Company (NYSE: LLY) announced its support of the newly revised Physicians
Payments Sunshine Act, sponsored by United States Senators Charles Grassley
(R-Iowa) and Herbert Kohl (D-Wisconsin). The bipartisan bill would
establish a national registry of payments to physicians by medical device,
medical supply and pharmaceutical companies. Lilly is the first
pharmaceutical research company to back such federal legislation, which is
similar to various laws in place in several states.

    "Lilly welcomes greater transparency in the health care system and
believes this legislation represents an important step in building public
trust and confidence in the relationships between the pharmaceutical and
device industries and physicians," said John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D.,
president and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company. "Lilly
intends to continue to build upon its leadership position in transparency.
In addition to our publicly available clinical trial and educational grant
registries, we continue to look at other ways to open up our business to
the public. This will help provide the assurance that Lilly runs its
business consistent not only with our principles, but with the principles
that a healthcare provider or patient should expect from a pharmaceutical
company."

    Noting the benefits of the federal standard for reporting payments to
doctors, Lechleiter added, "A key strength of the Grassley-Kohl bill is
that it would create a uniform national standard for reporting physician
payments. This helps patients, businesses and doctors alike by setting
expectations and creating a more efficient system for gathering, reporting
and understanding such data."

    "Lilly is proud of the longstanding relationships we have with
physicians," said Jack Harris, M.D., Lilly's vice president, U.S. Medical
Division. "Physicians perform valuable services for the biopharmaceutical
industry, such as enrolling and caring for patients in clinical trials.
They also give lectures to other medical professionals to educate them
about new treatment options. For these services they are compensated at
market rates. Moreover, these services help to advance the science related
to medicines and are important to both current and future patients who rely
on pharmaceuticals as part of their therapy."

    Support for the Grassley-Kohl bill is the newest addition to what Lilly
terms its "transparency agenda." In 2004, Lilly became the first company to
voluntarily make public its clinical trials and its clinical trials data;
that information can be found at http://www.lillytrials.com. And last year Lilly
added another first by publicly reporting all of its educational grants and
charitable contributions and, each quarter, posting the data online at
http://www.lillygrantoffice.com.

    As a leader on this issue, Senator Grassley has recognized Lilly's
efforts. In February 2008, Sen. Grassley sent 15 companies a letter about
transparency and called out Lilly's leadership. That letter read in part:
"I'm asking other pharmaceutical organizations to follow Lilly's lead and
show the public there's nothing to hide."

    About Lilly

    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 http://www.lilly.com.

    (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20031219/LLYLOGO )

    C-LLY

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