Inside the GLP-1 Gold Rush: Eli Lilly CEO on New Breakthroughs, Addiction & Mental Health, Pricing

Summary

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks joins the All-In hosts to explain how an 18-year GLP-1 bet produced tirzepatide, now the best-selling drug in the world with $8.1B of Q2 revenue growing about 80%, and how Lilly allocates that cash to organic R&D, US manufacturing and small acquisitions. He guides to single-digit annual price deflation for GLP-1s while defending a price floor to fund future medicines, and describes the drugs' expanding uses in addiction, mental health and possibly prophylactic longevity. Ricks also calls biotech funding a 'dumpster fire' driven by AI crowd-out, an IPO glut and Chinese patent hacking, and shares views on RFK Jr., drug advertising, AI chatbots, NIH cuts and PBMs.

• Tirzepatide surpassed Keytruda as the world's best-selling drug in Q2 2025 ($8.1B revenue, +80%); about 20 million people take prescription GLP-1s globally.
• Lilly's oral GLP-1 pill is expected next year; the cash price has fallen from about $1,000 to $499 and single-digit annual category price deflation is guided.
• Capital allocation priorities: organic R&D (25% of sales, about $14.2B), six US plants under construction plus four more planned, and small acquisitions roughly every two weeks.
• Biotech venture funding has fallen from about $20B to $5B a year; half of public biotech trades at or below cash, with AI crowd-out and China's patent hacking cited as causes.
• GLP-1s show effects on smoking, gambling and mental health; Lilly is starting bipolar and depression trials with a brain-oriented GLP-1, and Novo's dementia readout is due within months.
• Ricks backs MAHA food-system reform but worries about restricting vaccine access, favors less direct-to-consumer drug advertising, and sees incumbent PBMs at the end of their S-curve.
• He views AI chatbots as a net positive for patient research, is unsure of the impact of NIH cuts, and expects brain disease to be the next major pharma category.