Eli Lilly, a major pharmaceutical company by market cap, developed Humulin, the first commercially available human insulin product.
Humulin was introduced in 1982 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it in October of that year. It was produced using recombinant DNA technology in genetically modified bacteria, allowing scientists to make insulin chemically identical to human insulin.
Before Humulin, most therapeutic insulin came from the pancreases of pigs or cattle. Those animal-derived products saved millions of lives but could sometimes cause allergic or immune reactions. Recombinant human insulin offered a more consistent alternative and marked a major biotechnology milestone.
Humulin is a brand name covering several insulin formulations, including regular insulin and isophane insulin. It should not be confused with later Eli Lilly products such as insulin lispro, marketed as Humalog. Nor is Humulin the same as modern non-insulin diabetes medicines such as tirzepatide.