Case Study: Eli Lilly and Company achieves faster R&D collaboration and accelerated time-to-market with Microsoft Teams

Lilly envisions a workplace where internal and external collaboration help enable innovation and accelerate time-to-market for new medicines

Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical leader, needed to accelerate discovery and time‑to‑market for new medicines while managing regulatory compliance, costs, and collaboration across dispersed research, manufacturing and administrative teams. To dissolve physical barriers between labs and offices and enable seamless external partnerships, Lilly adopted Microsoft technologies — notably Microsoft Teams alongside Microsoft 365, Surface Hub, HoloLens and Exchange Online — to support “in‑lab collaboration” and virtual teamwork.

Microsoft Teams was rolled out through roughly 300 pilot projects across IT, research and marketing to centralize communications, co‑authoring and project workflows, integrate real‑time collaboration tools like Surface Hub and HoloLens, and leverage Microsoft 365 security and AI features. Backed by prior Microsoft migrations (more than 70,000 mailboxes moved to Exchange Online in under nine months), the Microsoft Teams‑led initiative has reduced document versioning, streamlined collaboration, and positioned Lilly to speed R&D and shorten time‑to‑market.

Eli Lilly and Company

Mike Meadows

Vice President and Chief Technology Officer