Throughout the first year of the partnership, teams from Lilly and Purdue have been working in lockstep to build and refine a shared research agenda, accelerating the integration of AI\u2011enabled approaches in drug discovery, advanced manufacturing, data science and next\u2011generation therapeutics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur institutions have a shared history that is almost 150 years old, and together we have strengthened the life sciences ecosystem in our state and country,\u201d said Purdue President Mung Chiang. \u201cWith excellence at scale, we are expanding \u2018AI for medicine\u2019 research efforts, manufacturing innovation and workforce development to meet strategic needs for Lilly, while also creating incredible opportunities for our faculty and students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative will cover every phase of pharmaceutical research from molecule discovery to patient delivery. The partnership is administered through the Eli Lilly and Company and Purdue University Research Alliance Center (LPRC)<\/a> , which serves as a nexus of cooperation between Purdue and Lilly researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The university has received $24 million in funding to support 2025-26 programs and will request additional funding in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout 2026, Purdue will launch six individual programs stemming from the initiatives in Lilly\u2019s organizational pillars: drug discovery, product research and development, manufacturing, and talent. The current priority areas include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The partnership is already engaging faculty and staff from multiple colleges, including engineering, pharmacy, science, health and human sciences, and the Mitch Daniels School of Business. In 2026, the interdisciplinary program will further expand its reach, bringing together faculty researchers from every college at Purdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative will also offer more academic opportunities for students. The university expects to increase participation from 80 to more than 100 graduate students and postdocs in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a pillar of the partnership, workforce development efforts will reach across campus to attract a diverse cohort into the program; 2025 had 176 undergraduate participants, with more than 225 targeted in calendar year 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur ability to respond at the \u2018speed of industry\u2019 is a hallmark of Purdue\u2019s commitment to Lilly, and all of our partners, through innovation,\u201d said Preeti Sivasankar, executive director of the Lilly Purdue Research Center and vice president for research innovation in the Office of Research. \u201cPurdue colleagues are working in close collaboration with their peers at Lilly to develop novel research methods and new technologies that can be immediately deployed into Lilly\u2019s ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on this first year of collaboration, Purdue and Lilly will expand the number of funded research projects, finalize shared innovation space in Discovery Park District<\/a> and broaden participation across additional academic units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August, a joint appointment under the Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative was named. Pavlos Vlachos, professor of mechanical engineering and the St. Vincent Health Professor of Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University, was appointed senior vice president for Device Delivery and Connected Solutions at Lilly. Vlachos, who previously served as director of LPRC, remains as a Purdue faculty member while assuming the senior leadership role at Lilly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lilly-Purdue 360 Initiative supports Purdue\u2019s One Health<\/a> Initiative, which advances knowledge and innovation related to animal, human and plant well-being through novel interdisciplinary initiatives and partnerships with industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap \u2014 including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative \u2014 at https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/president\/strategic-initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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