(Reuters) – Eli Lilly raised its annual profit forecast on Thursday as the U.S. drugmaker benefited from increased production capacity for its obesity and diabetes treatments.
The group’s results were notably driven by the success of its anti-obesity drug, Zepbound, which generated more than a billion dollars (914.91 million euros) in quarterly sales for the first time.
Zepbound’s crossing of the symbolic threshold comes a day after Danish rival Novo Nordisk surprised markets by missing its quarterly sales target for its flagship obesity drug Wegovy and lowering its annual profit forecast.
The craze for weight-gain treatments has boosted Eli Lilly’s market capitalization to $700 billion, with shares soaring about 32% since the start of the year.
Some analysts expect the market for weight-loss treatments to reach $150 billion by the early 2030s.
Quarterly sales of Mounjaro, a type 2 diabetes drug, were $3.09 billion, while Zepbound sales were $1.24 billion.
The drugmaker now expects adjusted earnings of $16.10 to $16.60 per share for 2024, compared with a prior forecast of $13.50 to $14.00, and overall revenue of $45.4 billion to $46.6 billion, compared with $42.4 billion to $43.6 billion previously.
Eli Lilly plans to launch new production lines in 2024 and open a plant in Concord, North Carolina, later this year.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the stock was up 10% in pre-market trading.
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Sriparna Roy in Bangalore and Patrick Wingrove in New York; edited by Augustin Turpin)
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