Protein C: Saving Lives, Saving Lilly

Benefiting from lessons learned during the more than two decades of futile efforts to develop a sepsis treatment, Lilly is primed to launch the first sepsis therapeutic. Lilly's apparent success reflects a revised view of the disease as multi-factorial in nature, involving not only the body's inflammatory processes--long thought to be at the heart of the disease--but also its interlocking coagulation and clot-busting systems. Zovant's development is also marked by a series of business decisions that could have long-term implications for the company, including a renewed commitment to large molecule drugs and the creation of a critical care business. Critical care pharmaceuticals and protein therapeutics are, in many ways, complementary pursuits for Lilly that could help the company maintain its independence by generating big money products that won't require the huge commercialization costs associated with mass-marketed drugs.