Elanco Animal Health Inc. announced March 11 that it is now a fully independent company. The completion of Eli Lilly & Co.'s exchange offer finalizes the journey Elanco began in 2017 when its former parent company first announced the exploration of potential strategic alternatives for the 64-year-old animal health company.

The exchange offer was 7.6x oversubscribed.

“This is a historic day for everyone at Elanco,” Elanco president and chief executive officer Jeff Simmons said. “It reflects our team's hard work over the past two years, the confidence that we have the right strategy and are successfully progressing the execution against it. With this milestone behind us, we look forward to a singular focus delivering innovative solutions and services for our customers: the farmers, veterinarians and pet owners that are central to our success. We welcome our new Elanco shareholders who join us and offer our appreciation to our customers and Lilly for the decades of support.”

The share exchange was completed fewer than six months after Elanco's initial public offering, when 19.8% of its shares were sold to the public. Since that time, Elanco has reported two quarters of financial and operating results as a stand-alone company and continues to demonstrate the strength of its strategy, with full-year 2018 revenue increasing 6% to $3.1 billion, according to the announcement.

Elanco is a global animal health company with more than 5,800 employees that develops products and knowledge services to prevent and treat disease in food animals and pets in more than 90 countries.

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