Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks explains to Patrick and John Collison how one-time curative therapies could be monetized over time rather than through upfront unit pricing.
“It's conceivable that one could create like a licensing concept, stealing from the SAS model, where you say, we'll do the procedure for free. And as long as it's working for you will deposit X amount in our bank account, and you're getting the value, and we're getting paid for our research. If it doesn't work, you know, so that, that invokes a warranty as well. That's an interesting idea, and one we're thinking about for these more common, because so far gene therapy is mostly for uncommon things, where that they've over, they've just charged it and someone's paid. But for common gene therapy to really be unlocked, this has to be solved.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dave Ricks
Opinion
Ricks: PBM rebate incentives should be eliminated as unethical
“These PBMs and there's some group purchasing organizations like this. That should go away. And I think health is different than other commodities. It's probably has a much more important social role in deciding that the smallest, the little guy gets the worst …”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 39:48Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
AssertionPartly supported
Ricks: Insurers initially refused to cover Eli Lilly's discounted generic insulin
“In the first year, no formularies covered this. So it was really only for that cash payer. No insurance company picked it up, even though it was dramatically cheaper. Now it's about half of the volume, but still half not because that model of this margin sprea…”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 44:56Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
PredictionPartly held up
Ricks: Machine-designed drugs haven't reached clinical trials yet, but are coming
“I don't know of one that's come through the machine driven discovery process, which is really machine plus human that's made it to the clinic yet, but they're coming.”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 3:19Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
Insight
Ricks: AI won't solve biology until we understand over 50% of it
“And today, I don't know, I would estimate we might know 10 to 15% of human biology. So the machine's not going to be good at all until we get way above 50%.”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 4:35Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
Opinion
Ricks: Claude and xAI beat ChatGPT for science because references check out
“I don't use that one for science actually. It's too, too horrible.
Patrick Collison: So which one do you use for science?
Dave Ricks: I tend to use either Claude or the XAI one. I find it more terse. And more, the references actually check out more often.”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 5:59Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
Opinion
Ricks: Lilly's industry-leading R&D ROI comes from process, not picking winners
“I think one of the reasons Lilly has probably the highest return on investment in R&D in the industry is because not the picking of winners and losers, but the, actually the process by which we run it.”
Dave RicksNov 11, 2025▶ 10:54Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s and the business of pharma
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, about 28 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.