STAT+: Lilly bypasses Australian pharmacies with DTC model

The item is a STAT+ newsletter roundup led by the headline that Eli Lilly is bypassing Australian pharmacies through a direct-to-consumer model. The available excerpt does not provide further specifics on Lilly's Australian strategy because the article is behind STAT+'s paywall.

In the roundup's "need-to-know" section, Novartis is paying $575 million upfront to license an experimental mRNA-based autoimmune therapy from Chinese firm Abogen Biosciences. The excerpt frames this as the latest example of a large pharma company turning to China to restock its pipeline.

The excerpt also cites a STAT analysis finding that the National Institutes of Health spent the $34 billion Congress allocated for research grants in fiscal year 2026, but that a slower and increasingly opaque funding process is making it harder to actually do science. It closes with subscription prompts and no additional details on the Lilly DTC model.