Eli Lilly is once again upping its revenue expectations for the full year as its diabetes and obesity medicines become less supply-constrained, and it has “increased confidence” in production ramp-up for the rest of this year. It has spent billions to increase manufacturing of Zepbound and Mounjaro.
Last quarter, Lilly had lifted its full-year guidance by $2 billion to a range of $42.4 to $43.6 billion. Now, the Indianapolis pharma giant is adding another $3 billion, meaning it anticipates $45.4 billion to $46.6 billion this year. The drugmaker posted $11.3 billion in sales for the second quarter, more than $1 billion above the consensus of $10.01 billion.
The results, which sent Lilly’s shares $LLY soaring 9% before Thursday’s opening bell, come a day after its obesity and diabetes drugmaker competitor Novo Nordisk reported its own quarterly earnings, which came in below expectations and led to a small dip in the Danish giant’s stock.
Both companies have seen their GLP-1 franchises become less supply-constrained in recent days, with updates to an FDA database saying more dosages of the drugs are now available.
Dave Ricks“Mounjaro, Zepbound and Verzenio led our strong financial performance in the second quarter as we advanced our manufacturing expansion agenda, and it is equally exciting to see the growth around the world of our medicines for cancer, neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a statement.
Lilly could now have an advantage over Novo in the race for an expanded label for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF.
Novo is pulling its application to wait for cardiovascular outcomes data later this year in the hopes of snagging a stronger label update for semaglutide. With that resubmission expected early next year, Lilly might now have a three-month lead on Novo, Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger wrote in an Aug. 7 note. “It is also likely, in our view, that sema cannot match the 38% risk reduction that tirzepatide showed” in a Phase 3 last week, Risinger said.
Meanwhile, Lilly disclosed three Phase 1 asset culls, including a GITR antagonist in immunology, an NRG4 agonist in heart failure and a PI3K selective candidate for cancer.
In the past quarter, Lilly also expanded its neuroscience work with the long-awaited approval of the Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla. Biogen and Eisai, an earlier duo in the anti-amyloid market, have seen a slow ramp-up of sales for their medicine Leqembi given the healthcare system complexities of delivering the treatment, which clinicians have said has a modest benefit.