By Peter Loftus
Eli Lilly, the world's biggest drugmaker by market value, reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit and issued a bullish earnings forecast.
-- Sales of weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro rose in the fourth quarter.
-- Revenue from Zepbound leapt to $1.91 billion, up from $175.8 million a year earlier.
-- Mounjaro's revenue rose to $3.53 billion, from $2.63 billion a year earlier.
Investor confidence in the anti-obesity drug market's potential has been shaken in recent months, because sales of Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy have come in lower than expected in some quarters. Both stocks are down since last summer.
Lilly had already previewed quarterly sales and given a 2025 revenue forecast last month. That hit the stock, because sales of Mounjaro and Zepbound were growing more slowly than expected.
Lilly's stock climbed nearly 1% premarket Thursday.
Overall, for the fourth quarter:
-- Revenue rose 45% to $13.53 billion. Aside from Mounjaro and Zepbound, sales also rose for cancer drug Verzenio and psoriasis drug Taltz.
-- Adjusted fourth-quarter earnings totaled $5.32 a share.
-- That topped the FactSet analysts' consensus estimate of $5.01 a share.
-- For 2025, Lilly predicts earnings of $22.50 to $24 per share, leaving room to beat the consensus forecast of $22.76.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 06, 2025 08:18 ET (13:18 GMT)
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