Eli Lilly Shrugs Off $75 Million Loss
18 March 2010, by pillgirl
Click to enlarge.
IN AN Ocean’s Thirteen–STYLE heist at an Eli Lilly and Company distribution center in Enfield, Conn., thieves made off with $75 million of pharmaceuticals over the weekend. Braving a raging storm, the perps scaled a brick wall, cut a hole in the warehouse ceiling, rappelled inside, disabled an alarm, and spent at least an hour loading pallets of drugs into a vehicle at a loading dock.
This latest in a rising wave of warehouse burglaries, experts say, is the biggest in drug industry history.
Click me.
Lilly officials seemed unfazed by the loss. “It may have no material financial impact on the company,” a Lilly spokesman said in a published report.
When you’re doing $21.8 billion in annual sales, I suppose $75 million is chump change.
The only press release Lilly issued on the incident focused not on the loss but on the danger of the contraband making its way to unwitting consumers.
Lilly is advising practitioners, retailers and consumers to check all pharmaceutical products for signs of tampering or damage prior to purchase and/or use. Pharmacists and other health care professionals should not use the product if it has been removed from the sealed bottle or container, if the induction seal has been compromised, or in the case of glass vials, if the flip cap appears to have been disturbed in any way.
Lilly’s senior vice president of global quality, Dr. Fionnuala M. Walsh, says the company “will continue to work closely with local and federal law enforcement authorities, the FDA, and our distribution partners to maintain the integrity of our drug supply chain.” (My emphasis.)
A band of thieves drilling a hole through your roof and taking their sweet time to make off with $75 million of your stock? I’d think you’d want to do more than maintain that so-called integrity.
