Eli Lilly & Co. logo. at the company’s Digital Health Innovation Hub facility in Singapore on Thursday, November 14, 2024.
Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Eli Lilly cut its revenue guidance on Tuesday as it said demand for its weight-loss and diabetes drugs would not meet its lofty expectations.
Shares of the drugmaker fell more than 7% in midday trading on Tuesday.
Eli Lilly said it now expects full-year 2024 revenue of about $45 billion. That’s lower than the company’s $45.4 billion to $46 billion expected in October. The new outlook would still mark a 32% year-over-year jump in revenue.
Eli Lilly has been racing to meet rising demand for its diabetes drug Mounjaro and obesity drug Zepbound, investing billions to boost its manufacturing capacity for the company’s booming so-called incretin drugs. The effort seems to be paying off: The Food and Drug Administration in December reaffirmed his decision declare a shortage of tirzepatide — the active ingredient in both drugs — in the US.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said the company has “tons of supply coming online” and “that kind of growth is likely to continue.”
He also noted that the company will add more manufacturing capacity and expects to produce at least 60% more marketable doses of its incretin drugs in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024.
Eli Lilly expects $13.5 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter. The total includes about $3.5 billion for Mounjaro and $1.9 billion for Zepbound.
Wall Street had expected fourth-quarter and full-year revenue of $13.94 billion and $45.49 billion, respectively, according to analysts polled by LSEG.
The Outlook cut comes in like the Eli Lilly it competes with Novo Nordisk and other, smaller competitors for a share of the explosive weight loss and diabetes drug market. Eli Lilly is developing an anti-obesity pill that would be more convenient for patients and easier to manufacture Ricks expects it to be approved already at the beginning of next year.
“While the US incretin market grew 45% compared to the same quarter last year, our previous guidance had predicted an even faster growth acceleration for this quarter. This, along with lower-than-expected year-end channel inventories, contributed to our results in fourth quarter,” Ricks said in a statement.
The drugmaker also said it expects sales of $58 billion to $61 billion in fiscal 2025.
Eli Lilly is expected to report full quarterly results on February 6.
