In the 1920s and 1930s, Eli Lilly and Company experienced significant growth and financial success as it expanded research and product development efforts. Lilly was actively involved in major projects that brought the Indianapolis company to the forefront as a top research-based pharmaceutical manufacturer. Insulin, which the company produced and sold under the trade name of Iletin, was the result of a pioneering collaboration with University of Toronto research scientists. In May 1922 Lilly and the company's director of biochemical research, George Henry Alexander Clowes, met in Toronto with J. J. R. Macleod, Frederick G. Banting, and Charles H. Best, the scientists who had discovered insulin as an effective treatment for diabetes. The meeting resulted in an agreement between the university and the Indianapolis manufacturer to mass-produce and distribute the drug. Iletin became the most important drug in the company's history and Banting and Macleod earned the Nobel Prize in 1923 for their groundbreaking work.