The U.S. government needs to open its borders to attract and retain talented scientists for drugmakers to employ, Eli Lilly & Co. CEO John Lechleiter plans to tell a technology conference Thursday.

Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter visited Japan last week—three days before the massive earthquake—to deliver his tried-and-true message: Drug companies need to reinvent invention, governments needs to support innovation, and Lilly will be just fine after it has sustained the damage of the next three years.

Cymbalta racked up $3.5 billion in sales last year, and some analysts say it may approach $5 billion before generic competition arrives in 2013.

Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter's total compensation increased $4.1 million in 2009.

Since John Lechleiter was named CEO 18 months ago, he's bet that Eli Lilly and Co. could face down its looming patent challenges by launching innovative new medicines. Today's announcement of 5,500 job cuts by the end of 2011 and a restructuring of the company's business units ups the ante on that bet, while indicating that it isn't working yet.

After so many years of trying to tap every possible cubicle-dweller for donations, United Way of Central Indiana is putting more effort into the richest veins in the workplace—the folks in corner offices.

Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter and his wife, Sarah, have pledged to give the United Way of Central Indiana a total of $1 million over the next four years as a “challenge to CEOs and other community leaders to step up their giving.”

Compared with some of his pharmaceutical CEO peers these days, John Lechleiter has his company on a diet. Instead of using a mega-merger to bulk up before the famine that patent expirations will bring on the industry next year, Lechleiter has Eli Lilly and Co. burning management fat while looking for smaller companies to munch on.

John C. Lechleiter, whom Eli Lilly and Co.'s board voted to replace Sidney Taurel as CEO, is known for getting things done and yet also for being good at analysis and relating to people under him. Taurel will step down at the end of March but remain chairman until the end of 2008.