Two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are riding the wave of popularity of GLP-1 drugs, which have led to higher sales for Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk being reported on Tuesday.
Eli Lilly cemented its position as market leader, with sales of its drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro skyrocketing.
The trillion-dollar company also posted better-than-expected quarterly results and raised its full-year revenue forecast, and its shares were up 2.5 per cent.
Sales of Mounjaro, Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug, rose 91 per cent in the second quarter of the year to US$9.94 billion, well above analysts’ expectations. Zepbound, an obesity drug, saw sales rise to US$4.93 billion.
Together, the two drugs accounted for 64.7 per cent of Eli Lilly’s revenue in April, May and June this year.
Compared to the same period last year, revenue in the U.S. market was up 48 per cent largely due to Zepbound and Mounjaro, Eli Lilly’s chief financial officer Lucas Montarce said in an earnings call Tuesday.
In the rest of the world, revenue grew 136 per cent, driven by Mounjaro, primarily in Latin America and Asia, he added.
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Eli Lilly’s place as a market leader was “already established,” Montarce said.
“In Q2, approximately six out of 10 total prescription and approximately seven out of 10 injectable prescriptions were for a Lilly medicine,” he said.
Sales of rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy oral GLP-1 pill met analyst expectations, but some analysts said Wegovy sales were “slightly soft” and failed to generate “excitement” among investors.
However, the Danish drugmaker behind Ozempic and Wegovy still saw operating profit rise 11 per cent, with Wegovy pills sales surpassing five million prescriptions in the U.S. since launch.
“We are treating almost 70 per cent more people living with obesity compared to just a year ago,” Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar said in an earnings call.
There was growing interest in Novo Nordisk’s oral medication, Doustdar said.
“We segment the population into injectable versus orals. Actually, we are more and more ourselves getting surprised (by) how many people are after a pill rather than an injection, frankly speaking,” he told investors.
Both companies are responding to the availability of GLP-1 generic drugs available in the Canadian market.
“While the generic players have started to capture market share, we have so far been able to grow our absolute volumes,” Emil Kongshøj Larsen, executive vice-president of internal operations at Novo Nordisk said.
“In Canada, our leading tactic is the savings card program, and we’ve seen good volume retention for both Ozempic and Wegovy in the cash and private insurance channels,” Larsen added.
Eli Lilly was “pleasantly surprised” by their performance in Canada, said Patrik Jonsson, president of Lilly International.
“We have also seen the generic companies actually having significant supply constraints. I think that’s something that we need to monitor very closely,” Jonsson said.
–with files from Reuters
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