Eli Lilly on Tuesday reported more than $9.3 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023, beating Wall Street expectations, thanks to demand for its weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro.
Pictured: Eli Lilly world headquarters with sign/iStock, jetcityimage
Eli Lilly on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter 2023 revenue and adjusted earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations driven by sales of its weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro.
According to Tuesday’s results, the pharma giant raked in $9.35 billion in global revenue in the fourth quarter, a 28% jump from the same period in 2022, and higher than the $8.93 billion expected by analysts. Adjusted earnings of $2.49 per share also topped the consensus estimate of $2.22 per share.
Lilly’s blockbuster Mounjaro (tirzepatide) was one of the principal sellers in the fourth quarter, bringing in more than $2.2 billion in sales, a significant change from the $279 million that the company brought in a year ago. However, the pharma’s other primary diabetes medication Trulicity recorded only $1.6 billion in sales for the quarter, marking a 14% decrease from same period in the prior year, due to intermittent delays fulfilling orders.
“Higher realized prices were driven by Mounjaro in the U.S., partially offset by lower realized prices for Humalog and Trulicity,” Lilly reported with Mounjaro in the fourth quarter seeing its “net price positively impacted by savings card dynamics” compared the same quarter in 2022 “as well as a favorable one-time change in estimates for rebates and discounts.”
At the same time, Lilly said it continues to experience and expects “intermittent delays fulfilling orders of certain Mounjaro doses given significant demand, which is expected to affect volume.”
Weight-loss drug Zepbound, which was only approved by the FDA in November 2023, saw $175 million in sales in the fourth quarter—the medication’s first quarterly results.
Lilly’s breast cancer treatment Verzenio also saw a significant spike in sales in the quarter, securing $1.1 billion in sales and a 42% bump from the same period in 2022. Still, Lilly is also making some pipeline adjustments removing Verzenio in a Phase III trial testing the drug in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer. The drug, combined with abiraterone, did not reach its primary endpoint.
“2023 was a year of tremendous achievement for Lilly, which delivered life-changing medicines to more patients than ever before, resulting in strong revenue growth,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a statement. “We advanced our pipeline of new medicines for serious diseases and created new partnerships and innovative ways of collaborating to add to that pipeline. Lilly invested in the quality, reliability and resilience of our supply chain with new advanced manufacturing plants and lines in the U.S. and in Europe.”
Looking at 2024, the company predicts that it will see revenue between $40.4 billion and $41.6 billion, driven by “new products” and partially offset by a continued decline in sales of Trulicity. Also, Lilly plans to keep expanding its manufacturing capabilities as it expects that demand for its weight-loss products will likely “outpace” supply this year.
According to an analyst report from Mohit Bansal at Wells Fargo, Lilly plans to invest $2.5 billion in a new manufacturing facility in Germany, giving more space for GLP-1 production outside sites in North Carolina. The report also noted that this expansion to Lilly’s manufacturing footprint is “welcome” following Novo Nordisk’s recent moves including its $16.5 billion acquisition of CDMO Catalent on Monday.
While Lilly is only the second pharma to enter the weight-loss market with an FDA-approved product, Novo Nordisk is still way ahead seeing over $33 billion in 2023 sales due to its blockbusters Wegovy and Ozempic which last week beat the expectations of analysts with sales in the GLP-1 space growing by 38% and obesity by 147%.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
