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NOVEMBER 24, 2003
Eli Lilly The Project: A Web site where scientific problems are posed and the best minds can solve them for cash prizes. The Payoff: Over the past two years, this has helped Eli Lilly solve problems in months instead of two to three years. Calling all brains. An Eli Lilly & Co (LLY ). startup, InnoCentive.com, is a Web site brimming with scientific conundrums. Anyone can go onto the site, come up with a solution to a thorny problem, and reap a tidy reward. Just ask David S. Bradin of Cary, N.C.: The lawyer and former chemist visited the site last year and won $4,000 for his synthesis of butante tetracarboxylic acid. Two dozen companies, including Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) and Dow Chemical Co., (DOW ) now put puzzlers on the two-year-old site. Some 45 people have earned a total of $600,000. Cheap research for the companies. They don't even have to pay the volunteers' health insurance.  By Michael Arndt Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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