Eli Lilly forecast 2024 profit above Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, driven by demand for its recently approved weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes medicine Mounjaro, both known chemically as tirzepatide.
Shares were up 2% in premarket trading after gaining about 11% in January. It is the 8th largest company in the U.S. by market capitalization.
The company expects adjusted annual earnings of $12.20 to $12.70 per share. Analysts had forecast a profit of $12.43 per share, according to LSEG data.
Zepbound brought in $175.8 million in its first few weeks of 2023 sales, Lilly said. The drug was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late November and became available for purchase in early December.
Eli Lilly said the drug tirzepatide met its primary goal in a mid-stage study for a type of fatty liver disease, with 74% of patients on the drug achieving an absence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) with no worsening of liver scarring, compared to 13% of patients on placebo.
Quarterly sales of the diabetes drug Mounjaro rose to $2.21 billion from $279.2 million last year.
Explosive demand for Mounjaro and Zepbound led investors to buy up Lilly's stock last year, propelling the drugmaker to a market capitalization of more than $600 billion and making it the world's most valuable healthcare company.
Novo Nordisk, Lilly's main rival in the obesity drug market, last week forecast another year of double-digit growth as it boosted U.S. supplies of its obesity drug Wegovy.
Zepbound and Wegovy belong to a class of treatments called GLP-1s, which were first developed to treat type 2 diabetes, and have been shown to help patients lose 15%-20% of their weight by reducing food cravings and causing the stomach to empty more slowly.
