You may’t deny the thrill. Credit Suisse analyst Trung Huynh has combed through social media and is impressed by the notice — and demand — for GLP-1 medications comparable to Eli Lilly ‘s Mounjaro. “Although we caution posts can have responder bias, and comments are in the general public domain and unconfirmed, nonetheless now we have parsed through and curated an archive of essentially the most interesting observations that provide an alternate perspective to traditional data, in our view,” Huynh said in a research note Thursday. Amongst those observations are reports of other potential advantages that patients taking Mounjaro, or tirzepatide, are seeing. To recap, Mounjaro has been approved as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes, however the drug is anticipated to be cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, possibly by the top of this 12 months, to treat obesity and chubby. Patients enrolled in Eli Lilly’s studies have lost as much as 20% or more of their initial weight when taking the drug, topping results from other available medications. The corporate can be conducting several additional trials to explore using tirzepatide to treat other conditions comparable to sleep apnea. Huynh reported seeing social media posts where individuals with sleep apnea said they were in a position to recuperate sleep quality or discontinue using a CPAP machine after reducing weight on Mounjaro. Others taking the drug reported advantages comparable to a discount in addiction behaviors comparable to smoking, drinking, gambling and shopping, amongst other things. “Although relatively unsurprising given the literature suggests GLP agonism suppresses hedonic food intake through the brain reward pathway, we’re very fascinated about the possibly far-reaching effect beyond obesity and T2D,” Huynh said. He noted other comments suggested uses for the drug to treat infertility and polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition that has a 50% to 60% overlap with obesity. Although Eli Lilly hasn’t said it’s exploring this indication, Novo Nordisk — which has a rival GLP-1 medication, semaglutide — has registered a recent study to guage this. The largest point of caution is social media chatter suggests medical insurance providers have gotten more restrictive with reimbursement. Nevertheless, this will likely be a function of patients who are attempting to make use of Mounjaro off-label for obesity, he said. GLP-1 medications carry hefty price tags. To help with payments, Eli Lilly is offering a $575 copay coupon that expires at the top of the 12 months, Huynh said. Credit Suisse has an outperform rating on Eli Lilly shares, with a $490 price goal, which means greater than 9% upside from where shares closed Wednesday. LLY YTD mountain LLY in 2023 — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
Eli Lilly hits $1 trillion market value, first for health care company
An indication with the corporate logo sits outside of the headquarters of Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 17, 2024.Scott...
