By Mrinalika Roy and Mariam Sunny Aug 5 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.
The trillion-dollar company also posted better-than-expected quarterly results and raised its full-year revenue forecast, and its shares jumped over 5% in early trading
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 of its Wegovy weight-loss drug in the U.S. earlier this year. 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.
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 partly offset those gains, Lilly said. Mounjaro is the brand name used for both weight loss and diabetes outside the U.S. 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.