On September 17, 2020, the Eli Lilly and Company logo was displayed in an office of Eli Lilly and Company in San Diego, California, USA.
Mike Black | Reuters
Eli Lilly and Company The company reported first-quarter adjusted profit on Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year guidance on strong sales of its best-selling diabetes drug Mounjaro and newly launched weight-loss drug Zepbound.
The drugmaker now expects full-year adjusted earnings per share of $13.50 to $14.00, up from previous guidance of $12.20 to $12.70 per share. Eli Lilly also expects revenue this year to be between $42.4 billion and $43.6 billion, an increase of $2 billion on either end.
Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected full-year adjusted earnings per share of $12.50 on sales of $41.44 billion.
The company said it raised guidance in part because of “clearer clarity” on its manufacturing expansion of Zepbound, Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.
The results and guidance upgrade reflect Zepbound’s first full quarter in the U.S. market after receiving regulatory approval in early November. The drug had sales of $517.4 million in the first quarter, although most doses of the drug are in shortage in the United States, which is expected to last until June.
Analysts say sales of the weekly shot could exceed $1 billion in its first year on the market and could become the biggest drug ever.
Eli Lilly noted that demand this season for Mounjaro and Zepbound, which are known as incretin drugs, mimic hormones produced in the gut to suppress a person’s appetite and regulate blood sugar, outstripped supply growth.
The company said it will continue to expand its production scale and expects the most significant increase in output in the second half of the year.
“Our first priority is to make more product and we’re doing everything we can to do that,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Increase efforts. But it is capital intensive, technically complex and highly regulated.”
Mounjaro and Zepbound are “the most complex drugs we’ve ever made,” Ricks added.
This is Eli Lilly’s report Season one Compared to Wall Street expectations, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: Adjusted $2.58, expected $2.46
- income: $8.77 billion vs. $8.92 billion expected
Eli Lilly reported first-quarter net income of $2.24 billion, or $2.48 per share. That compares with profit of $1.34 billion, or $1.49 per share, a year ago.
Excluding one-time items related to the value of intangible assets and other adjustments, the company reported first-quarter 2024 profit of $2.58 per share.
The pharmaceutical giant’s first-quarter revenue was $8.77 billion, a year-over-year increase of 26%.
Eli Lilly’s shares rose nearly 7% in pre-market trading on Tuesday. The company’s shares are up nearly 60% in 2023 and another 26% this year on strong demand for the company’s weight loss and diabetes drugs. This is despite their high prices, spotty insurance coverage and intermittent shortages.
Eli Lilly, with a market capitalization of approximately US$700 billion, is the largest pharmaceutical company in the United States
Mounjaro, Trulicity results
The company’s two best-selling diabetes drugs both missed Wall Street expectations in the first quarter.
Mounjaro’s first-quarter revenue of $1.81 billion was more than three times the $568.5 million in the same period last year. However, analysts expected sales of $2.11 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Eli Lilly and Co. said higher Mounjaro prices helped boost revenue, especially as usage of its U.S. savings card program declined
But the company said those savings card dynamics should “no longer have a significant impact on actual price comparisons” because a $25-per-month coupon for patients without Mounjaro insurance expired in June.
Meanwhile, sales of Eli Lilly’s veteran diabetes drug Trulicity plunged 26% to $1.46 billion in the first quarter. That was below analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Eli Lilly said the sales decline in the U.S. was primarily due to supply constraints and competition with other diabetes treatments. Revenues outside the U.S. also declined due to lower demand and real prices and tight supply.
Other drugs fall short of expectations
Revenue growth was also boosted by sales of Eli Lilly’s breast cancer drug Verzenio, which rose 40% in the quarter to $1.05 billion due to increased demand.
However, those results were below analysts’ expectations, which had expected sales of $1.11 billion in the period.
Sales of Jardiance, a pill that lowers blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, rose 19% to $686.5 million in the first quarter. Analysts had expected Jardiance sales of $718.3 million.
Jardiance, which Eli Lilly shares with Boehringer Ingelheim, is one of the first 10 drugs selected for price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.
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