Eli Lilly: From Civil War Roots to Global Pharma Leader Colonel Eli Lilly, a pharmacist and veteran of the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, founded Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis in 1876 with a clear goal to produce high-quality medicines in an era when many so-called remedies were unregulated and ineffective. A disciplined and principled man, Colonel Lilly insisted on rigorous standards and scientific methods, setting his company apart from the patent medicine…