Obesity-Drug Success Allows Lilly CEO to Avoid Expensive Deals

Eli Lilly & Co. isn’t planning to make big acquisitions despite a monthslong buying spree across the biopharma industry.

Instead, Chief Executive Officer Dave Ricks said Lilly’s “sweet spot” is early-stage deals that will give the drugmaker access to new technology to make cutting-edge medicines.

“We don’t have a big buyout strategy. Taking out a peer — that’s not on my list at all,” Ricks said in an interview at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

More than $6.4 billion in health-care deals were announced Monday at the annual conference as companies like Johnson & Johnson and Merck & ...