How a $250M deal with Lilly fits into Purdue’s aim at more industry funding
Purdue President Mung Chiang has been signaling a shift in research funding in recent months, ahead an expanded partnership with Eli Lilly. Plus, LPD officers cleared in fatal shooting May 1.
Weeks after telling faculty on the West Lafayette campus and tech industry leaders that the future of university research could depend on heavier reliance on business partner funding, Purdue President Mung Chiang was at Eli Lilly Friday helping to announce a partnership worth up to $250 million with the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company.
Purdue was touting the eight-year package of targeted research and student opportunities as potentially the largest between a university and industry in U.S. history.
Dubbed the Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative, the plan replaces an existing agreement that had been scheduled to expire in 2027 between the two.
Among the goals, according to Chiang and David Ricks – Eli Lilly’s CEO and, since January, a Purdue trustee – were ramped up research aimed at speeding the process of getting treatments from labs to clinical trials and then to markets; creating a better and more reliable supply chain; incorporating more AI into Lilly’s processes; developing big data analytics to look into personalized treatments; and strengthening a pipeline for Purdue graduates to the company.
“So many of the faculty of Purdue and the graduate students who study there want to make sure they have research that has impact and meaning in the world,” Ricks said. “And I think here, the collaboration offers a big platform for that kind of impact and meaning.”
Chaing has been floating that concept during a semester that has left many uncertainties about the future of a university research model built over the past 60 years largely on federal grants.
In March, Chiang started to lay out for Purdue faculty what a new model might look, saying that “universities can offer a pathway of ‘innovating to profitability’ and a special talent pool educated in a research environment” while also navigating “a corporation’s financial decisions” that align with shareholder interests in ways that aren’t tied to use of tax dollars.
Speaking in April in a keynote address at SEMI Expo Heartland – a conference designed to boost semiconductor interest in Indiana and in what Chiang calls a Hard Tech Corridor along I-65 – Chiang expanded on that, saying that “a new equilibrium for university research could emerge” and that both sides should be ready for it.
On Friday, Chiang said Purdue was on pace to have its best fiscal year in the university’s history for federal funding, despite how things have been playing under a new White House administration, with more than a month to go before the books close on June 30.
“This agreement, which is announced with Lilly, is actually in its totality in the next 7½ years, the largest research funding support from either public or private capital,” Chiang said. “So I think we can actually win along all tracks. … I believe that it is not a zero sum that somehow you’ve got to choose between federally funded or industry partnership-based research support. Purdue is winning in both tracks, big time.”
The new agreement with Lilly fits in the Purdue One Health Initiative, a university-wide focus on health and life sciences that trustees have considered one four focuses for the university. (The others: The creation of the Daniels School of Business, the Purdue-Indianapolis campus and the AI and computer science push of Purdue Computes.)
Chiang said Purdue’s work with industry-funded research “has always been there.”
“But now with today's announcement, Lilly and Purdue are taking a leadership position across the entire country with the largest such agreement in scale and perhaps in scope, too, to demonstrate what we can do together,” Chiang said. “Now, this may not be the only part of the future of research, but it certainly is an increasingly important part, and we're very proud of a nationally leading agreement today for the future.”
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LPD, PROSECUTOR: OFFICERS CLEARED IN FATAL SHOOTING AT DOMESTIC CALL
Two Lafayette police officers on the scene when a man was shot and killed May 1 while they were on a standby detail at a southside apartment during a domestic incident were cleared this week after an internal investigation, LPD reported Friday.
The Tippecanoe County prosecutor’s office also reported it concluded that the officers’ actions were justified.
LPD released the names of the two officers – Jeremy Kennedy and Evan Sturgeon – after a Shooting Review Board concluded Thursday that they acted within department policy.
Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello last week identified the man who was killed as Kenneth D. Smith, 55, of Lafayette. Costello reported after an autopsy that Smith died from multiple gunshot wounds.
According to LPD, the shooting happened at 9:02 p.m. May 1 in the 2800 block of Ravenwood Court. Lafayette police reported that officers were at the apartment, requested to be there as a woman and a child left after a domestic incident. According to the police account, Smith began shooting in the direction of the woman, juvenile and the officers. LPD said an officer returned fire. Smith was pronounced dead at the scene, according to LPD. No officers were injured, according to LPD. The woman and the juvenile were not injured, either, according to police.
On Friday, LPD said Kennedy, a seven-year veteran of the department, fired and hit Smith. Sturgeon, a five-year veteran of LPD, did not fire his weapon, due to his position in the apartment, according to the police account.
Both officers had been on administrative leave since the shooting.
LPD reported Friday that the criminal case, separate from the internal investigation, also had been completed and given to the Tippecanoe County prosecutor for review.
On Friday, the prosecutor’s office reported that it had reviewed reports, statements of those on the scene and body camera footage from the officers. The prosecutor’s office said it determined that Kennedy’s actions were “a proper exercise of his rights of self-defense and defense of others and therefore his actions were legally justified under the law.”
INDIANA SUPREME COURT FINALIZES COMMERCIAL COURT IN TIPPECANOE COUNTY
Chief Justice Loretta Rush told a crowd in Lafayette in October that a commercial court, the 11th in the state, was coming to Tippecanoe County in 2025. Judge Dan Moore from Tippecanoe Superior Court 7 was the one who’d take on the role presiding over the regional court.
This week, the Indiana Supreme Court formally announced the creation of the commercial court and named Moore to the role, starting June 1.
Who knew it wasn’t a done deal? Then again, Rush never held back about the fact that she was a big fan of the concept, whether speaking to the local bar association or to Greater Lafayette Commerce members during visits in 2024. By offering efficiency and increased familiarity when settling business disputes, Rush said in October, a commercial court would be something Tippecanoe County and Purdue could sell when courting businesses large and small. The idea is to have company lawyers and a judge get together and try to figure out what is the most efficient way to get a situation to a resolution.
For more, here’s a Q&A from the fall when Moore prepared to step into the role and what it would mean for Tippecanoe County’s courts:
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I support Purdue building industry partnerships, but the coverage of the Lilly deal deserves far more scrutiny. Labeling it the “largest ever” without clarifying how much of the $250 million is actually guaranteed—and how much is contingent—gives a distorted impression, especially since this deal largely replaces an agreement already in place through 2027. In my view, media should go beyond repeating the Mung administration’s talking points, especially given its track record of being casual with the truth.
What’s missing from the coverage is any detail about how the Lilly funds will be governed or what safeguards are in place to protect against corporate influence over research agendas, publication rights, or intellectual property. That’s a crucial oversight—particularly when you consider Lilly’s history with the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa during Daniels' tenure. The company paid $1.4 billion in one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history after being accused of illegally marketing the drug and downplaying serious side effects. At least 32 states filed lawsuits related to Zyprexa, with allegations that Lilly prioritized profits over patient safety.
That history makes transparency non-negotiable, especially when Lilly’s CEO sits on Purdue’s board and stands to influence both sides of this deal. These are exactly the kinds of situations where clear conflict-of-interest policies and public accountability should be front and center. Purdue’s faculty and students—and Indiana taxpayers—deserve to know how research priorities will be protected and whether public interests are being upheld in this partnership.