Zyprexa, Lilly's new star, leaves Prozac in its dust

Indianapolis Business Journal, November, 2003 by Greg Andrews

Move over, Prozac. Eli Lilly and Co. has a new superstar, and it isn't one of its new drugs that's getting all the press these days.

It's Zyprexa, an antipsychotic that through the first nine months of this year rung up $3.1 billion in sales--more than one-third of Lilly's total.

Prozac never topped that, even in an entire year. The antidepressant's annual sales peaked at $2.6 billion in 2000, the year it lost U.S. patent protection, opening the floodgates on generic competition.

Because Zyprexa is not a drug for the masses--it has U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to treat schizophrenia and manic depression--the Zyprexa name will never become ingrained in popular culture the way Prozac's was in the 1990s.

But Zyprexa revenue...