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The world’s biggest drugmaker Eli Lilly has forecast that profits for the year will beat expectations, after two choppy quarters when disappointing sales of its blockbuster weight-loss drugs led to sharp sell-offs in its shares.
The group said on Thursday that it expected earnings per share of between $22.50 and $24 this year, potentially beating Wall Street estimates of $22.76. Forecast sales of between $58bn and $61bn for the year are also ahead of expectations.
The latest forecasts, driven by demand for its blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss medications Mounjaro and Zepbound, initially pushed its shares up 2 per cent in pre-market trading.
One top-25 shareholder said that investors “see it as a vote of confidence that demand isn’t going to wane”.
Eli Lilly, which has a market capitalisation of $800bn, has said that excess inventory hit sales and profits for its weight-loss drugs in the last two quarters of 2024.
The popularity of the new class of weight-loss drugs, known as GLP-1s, has made Eli Lilly the biggest pharmaceutical company and its Danish rival, Novo Nordisk, Europe’s most valuable company. Peak annual sales of weight-loss drugs have been estimated at more than $100bn.
Mounjaro generated $3.5bn of sales in the last three months of 2024, taking its total sales in the year to $11bn. Zepbound accounted for $1.9bn of sales in the quarter, well ahead of the $175mn in the same period last year, which came just after its launch.
Zepbound was also approved last year in the US to treat adults with a breathing condition called obstructive sleep apnoea, increasing the number of patients eligible for the drug. Trial data of two new weight-loss treatments are expected this year: the pill Orforglipron and the injection Retatrutide.
Earlier this week, shares in Novo rose by nearly 5 per cent after it said sales of its diabetes and obesity drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy, were ahead of expectations.
In contrast, Bristol Myers Squibb, which is struggling with some of its bestselling drugs coming off patent, on Thursday announced an additional $2bn of cost cuts over the next three years, on top of $1.5bn unveiled last year. It expects $45.5bn of sales this year and earnings per share of between $6.55 and $6.85. Both metrics are lower than Wall Street expectations.
