By Mrinalika Roy and Mariam Sunny <\/p>\n
Aug 5 (Reuters) – Sales of Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro injectable weight-loss and diabetes drugs soared during the second quarter, easily beating Wall Street estimates and widening the gap with Danish rival Novo Nordisk. <\/p>\n
The trillion-dollar \u200ccompany also posted better-than-expected quarterly results and raised its full-year revenue forecast, and its shares jumped over 5% in early \u200ctrading. <\/p>\n
The strong results are likely to reassure investors that demand for Lilly’s GLP-1 treatments remains resilient despite pricing pressure and intensifying competition from Novo, which launched an oral version \u200bof its Wegovy weight-loss drug in the U.S. earlier this year. <\/p>\n
Sales of diabetes drug Mounjaro rose 91% to $9.94 billion, beating analysts’ estimates, while obesity drug Zepbound brought in $4.93 billion, compared with expectations of $4.73 billion. The two drugs accounted for 64.7% of Lilly’s revenue in the latest reported quarter. <\/p>\n
Strong demand lifted sales volumes across global markets, with Mounjaro driving growth outside the United States and both Mounjaro and Zepbound boosting U.S. sales, although lower realized prices \u200cpartly offset those gains, Lilly said. Mounjaro is \u2060the brand name used for both weight loss and diabetes outside the U.S. <\/p>\n
By comparison, Novo’s diabetes and obesity portfolio generated nearly 59.3 billion Danish crowns ($9.16 billion) in quarterly sales, led by Ozempic and Wegovy injections. <\/p>\n
The U.S. government \u2060last month launched a pilot program allowing Americans to access obesity medicines through the Medicare program for people aged 65 and older or with disabilities that will offer the medications for a monthly co-pay of $50. <\/p>\n
The expanded Medicare access should support U.S. growth, with about 60% to 70% of those in the program \u200bexpected \u200bto be patients new to the drugs, said Kevin Gade, chief operating officer \u200bat Lilly investor Bahl & Gaynor. <\/p>\n
The market continues to underappreciate the \u200cstrength of Mounjaro demand outside the U.S. and its longer-term international growth potential, he added. <\/p>\n
Lilly and Novo dominate the lucrative obesity market. Lilly surpassed a $1 trillion valuation last year, while Novo’s newly launched Wegovy pill is quickly gaining traction in its U.S. rollout. <\/p>\n
The global market for obesity drugs reached $66 billion in 2025, according to data firm IQVIA. Analysts expect it to hit over $100 billion annually by 2030 in the U.S. alone. <\/p>\n
Citi analysts said the outlook for the remainder of the year would depend on volume growth, driven by expanded Medicare access and sustained international demand \u200cfor Mounjaro. <\/p>\n
LILLY RAISES BAR AGAIN <\/p>\n
Lilly now expects revenue of $85 billion to $87 billion, up \u200bfrom its previous forecast of $82 billion to $85 billion. <\/p>\n
J.P.Morgan analysts wrote in a note that \u200bLilly remained their top pick with further upside to Street numbers \u200bover the next several years. <\/p>\n
The revised forecast comes a day after Novo also raised its full-year profit and \u200csales forecasts, counting on its oral pill to help claw \u200bback lost ground from Lilly in \u200bthe lucrative market. <\/p>\n
Sales of Foundayo, Lilly’s newly launched once-daily obesity pill, came in at $98 million, falling short of analysts’ average expectation of $105.6 million. <\/p>\n
Lilly slightly trimmed the top end of its full-year profit forecast, citing charges related to business activity in the quarter. <\/p>\n
It now \u200bexpects 2026 adjusted earnings of $35.50 to $36.50, from its \u200cprior view of $35.50 to $37. Analysts are estimating a profit of $34.20 per share. <\/p>\n
Adjusted earnings came in at $8.38 per share for the \u200bsecond quarter, sailing past analysts’ average estimate of $6.01, according to data compiled by LSEG. <\/p>\n
($1 = 6.4705 Danish crowns) <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny \u200band Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Bill Berkrot) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mrinalika Roy and Mariam Sunny Aug 5 (Reuters) – Sales of Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro injectable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[583,24782,276,6304,272,40897],"class_list":["post-141299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novo-nordisk","tag-danish-crowns","tag-diabetes-drugs","tag-eli-lilly","tag-mounjaro","tag-novo-nordisk","tag-quarterly-sales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117048052643422014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}