Eli Lilly research fellow Dale Edgar says, "By 2030, 71.5 million people will be over the age of 65 in the United States. And by the year 2050, 29.7 percent of the population will be 85 or older. There's a whole lot of people with a whole lot of issues and pain will be prominent amongst those unless we come up with some solutions."

Eli Lilly is providing the initial seed money of $400,000 over two years.

The consortium's first project will use neuroimaging techniques to study chronic osteoarthritis.

Correction: In on-air versions of this story, Lesley Arnold, MD was misidentified as being with the University of Michigan. She is, in fact, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.