(BFM Bourse) – The American laboratory saw its revenues increase by 28% in the fourth quarter and by 20% over the whole of 2023, benefiting in particular from sales of its anti-obesity treatment approved at the end of the year.
If Novo Nordisk had a good year in 2023 on the stock market, becoming the largest European capitalization, its closest rival, Eli Lilly, is not to be outdone. The American pharmaceutical group sees its market capitalization jump by more than 100% over one year and by 21.15% over the first weeks of 2024. Performances which are even higher than that of Novo Nordisk, which increases 70% over one year and 17.8% since January 1.
Like the Danish company, Eli Lilly is one of the big winners from the rise of anti-diabetic and especially anti-obesity drugs, the big Wall Street theme of 2023, after the inevitable leap in generative artificial intelligence.
If Novo Nordisk has the flagship treatments Ozempic and Wegovy, Eli Lilly counts in its ranks the antidiabetic Mounjaro as well as its version intended to treat obesity, Zepbound. This latest drug was approved on November 8 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American health authority.
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Results above expectations
The results presented by the American company this Tuesday include the first sales of this drug in the fourth quarter.
Over the last three months of 2023, Eli Lilly generated revenues of $9.53 billion, up 28% year-on-year. Over the period, Zepbound sales totaled $175.8 million in the space of a few weeks. Mounjaro is the drug that contributed the most to revenues, to the tune of 2.2 billion dollars, compared to 279 million a year earlier.
Earnings per share, the most closely watched indicator on Wall Street, increased 19% year-on-year to $2.49.
According to an LSEG consensus cited by CNBC, analysts expected revenues of $8.93 billion and earnings per share of $2.22.
For the full year, Eli Lilly’s sales reached $34.1 billion, an amount that includes $5.16 billion from Mounjaro sales, more than ten times more than in 2022. By 2024, Eli Lilly expects revenues of between $40.4 billion and $41.6 billion, which would mark growth of between 18.5% and 22%.
On Wall Street, at the start of the session, Eli Lilly shares rose 3% following the publication of these results, bringing its market capitalization to $690 billion, the ninth largest in the world (Novo Nordisk is fourteenth ).
“Although the stock trades at a significant premium to its peers, we see unprecedented growth for Eli Lilly over the next decade,” said Chris Schott, an analyst at JPMorgan, in a note cited by Bloomberg. According to him, sales of Zepbound and similar drugs are expected to reach $50 billion by 2030 and continue to grow beyond that date.
In a recent note, Bank of America reiterated its buy opinion, and estimated the group’s revenues in 2024 at $41.2 billion, with $9 billion in sales from Mounjaro and $2.8 billion for Zepbound. .
Julien Marion – ©2024 BFM Bourse
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