An indication with the corporate logo sits outside of the headquarters of Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 17, 2024.
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Eli Lilly reached a $1 trillion market capitalization on Friday, the primary health-care company on the planet to affix the exclusive club dominated by tech firms.
Eli Lilly briefly hit the $1 trillion mark in morning trading before retreating. It was last trading around $1,048 a share. Eli Lilly is the second nontechnology company to succeed in the coveted $1 trillion mark within the U.S. after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
The drugmaker’s stock has climbed greater than 36% this yr as investors applaud the gains it has revamped chief rival Novo Nordisk within the GLP-1 drug space. The Indianapolis-based company’s stock has been riding the skyrocketing popularity of its weight reduction injection Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro.
Eli Lilly’s stock has soared on the back of the success of its drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound.Demand is just expected to grow as approvals for the treatments’ uses and insurance coverage expand.
The 2 drugs have driven eye-popping sales growth for Eli Lilly. Last month, the drugmaker said Mounjaro drew in $6.52 billion in revenue within the third quarter, a 109% increase from the previous yr. Meanwhile, Zepbound posted $3.59 billion in sales throughout the period, a 184% spike from the prior-year period.
Demand for the treatments will only grow as approvals for his or her use and insurance coverage expand. As well as, the drugmaker expects an oral version of its popular drugs to hit the market next yr, which could give patients a more convenient option than a shot that is simpler for the corporate to supply.
Eli Lilly will likely remain a dominant player in the burden loss drug market, which some analysts consider could be value greater than $150 billion by the early 2030s.
But despite its recent struggles and leadership shakeups, Novo Nordisk stays a formidable rival for Eli Lilly within the space. Pfizer also made a push forward out there, as well, when it won a $10 billion bidding war with Novo Nordisk for obesity drugmaker Metsera earlier this month.
The runaway success of Zepbound, Mounjaro
Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and Union veteran of the U.S. Civil War, founded his namesake company in 1876. It has long been on the forefront of the diabetes treatment space, introducing the world’s first business insulin in 1923.
Eli Lilly became a publicly traded company on the Latest York Stock Exchange by 1952, and for many years relied on a slate of widely successful products to drive much of its profits and revenue. That included insulins, the antidepressant pill Prozac and the earliest polio vaccine.
An Eli Lilly & Co. Zepbound injection pen, March 28, 2024.
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Eli Lilly hit the jackpot with the May 2022 approval of tirzepatide for diabetes, which is sold as Mounjaro. It began to compete with Novo Nordisk’s diabetes injection Ozempic, which had entered the market just a few years earlier.
But Eli Lilly brought a brand new technique to treat diabetes and eventually, obesity. Tirzepatide works by imitating two hormones produced within the gut called GLP-1 and GIP. GLP-1 helps reduce food intake and appetite. GIP, which also suppresses appetite, may additionally improve how the body breaks down sugar and fat.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, the energetic ingredient in Ozempic and its weight reduction drug Wegovy, only targets GLP-1.
Mounjaro achieved “blockbuster” status — meaning it generated greater than $1 billion in annual sales — during its first full yr in the marketplace. Eli Lilly then won approval in late 2023 for tirzepatide as a treatment for obesity, which is sold as Zepbound and now competes with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.
By 2024, Mounjaro pulled in $11.54 billion in sales, while Zepbound posted $4.93 billion in revenue.
