Eli Lilly is making waves in the corporate debt market with a $6.75 billion multi-tranche bond sale that includes a rare 40-year note: an unusual move for a pharmaceutical company. Most corporate bonds mature in five to 30 years.
Analysts say the deal, which went to market last month, furnishes the drugmaker cheap, long-term capital that could fund strategic growth. Similar 40-year issuances have been seen only sparingly, such as Alphabet’s May issuance, which marked its return to the bond market with a four-decade euro note. Meta Platform’s 2024 $10.5 billion bond offering, which included a 40-year tranche, underlined its own debt-driven strategy.
The Lilly offering comes as the company continues an acquisition streak. CEO David Ricks proclaimed at a 2024 J.P. Morganhosted event that the company is “open for business,” and recent purchases back that up: Verve Therapeutics and Scorpion Therapeutics in 2025, along with Nexus Pharmaceuticals and Morphic Holding in 2024. Morphic, alone, cost $3.2 billion.
Market chatter now points to Viking Therapeutics as a potential Lilly target. Its obesity drug, VK2735, an oral dual GLP-1/GIP agonist, competes directly with Lilly’s weight-loss portfolio and has shown promising clinical results.
Lilly itself just announced positive Phase 3 trial results for its own oral obesity pill, orforglipron, which achieved significant weight loss and cardiometabolic improvements over 72 weeks. The data clear the way for global regulatory submissions.
In addition to M&A, Lilly is doubling its spending on US-based medicine production facilities. After spending $23 billion between 2020 and 2024, earlier this year it confirmed commitment of more than $50 billion going forward.
Beyond pharma, the bond sale reflects a broader global divergence in M&A financing. In India, JSW Paints is planning a 50 billion rupee (about $567.1 million) bond for its acquisition of Akzo Nobel India while Manipal Hospitals and Torrent Power are raising 53 billion rupees and 84 billion rupees, respectively, for strategic purchases. US transactions lean more on equity nowadays.
Eli Lilly has announced no fresh deals. But the combination of long-term capital, recent M&A, and in-the-pipeline developments suggests the Indianapolis-based drugmaker is gearing up for its next transformational move.
