Conditions are getting a bit more challenging for the drugmaker.
If you looked solely at its stock price, you might get the idea that Eli Lilly (LLY 4.28%) is having a bit of an off quarter. Over the past 30 days, its shares fell by about 10%, though they are still up by around 37% so far this year. And, if management is correct, one cloudy trend driving their recent decrease in performance is more likely to stick around than shareholders would prefer.
Nonetheless, things aren’t anywhere near as bad as they might seem at the moment. And Eli Lilly’s cloud also has a pair of silver linings that investors will want to hear about.
Tirzepatide sales showed some unexpected weakness
Lilly’s newest cash cow, tirzepatide — a therapy for type 2 diabetes and weight loss that’s sold under the names Mounjaro and Zepbound — is selling a bit slower than anticipated. Though its total revenue in the U.S. in the third quarter was $7.8 billion, up 46% from a year prior, $1.2 billion of which was derived from sales of Zepbound (the weight loss brand), the market’s expectations were even higher.
The reason for the disconnect between expectations and outcomes is twofold. First, pharma wholesalers overbought Mounjaro and Zepbound in Q2, so they didn’t need to restock their inventories as much as anticipated in Q3, leading to lower sales for Lilly. Second, the previously declared shortage of tirzepatide is over. Now, for the first time, sales will be constrained by demand rather than by how many doses it can supply.
That is likely to result in relatively gloomy numbers for a couple of reasons, at least temporarily. In the Q3 report, management trimmed its guidance for 2024’s revenue to a maximum of $46 billion, just three months after increasing its annual guidance in Q2 to a high point of $46.6 billion. The flip-flopping outlooks may leave investors with a sense that future guidance figures could be cut just as quickly.
More importantly, investors need to recognize that the most hectic period of the gold rush for the company’s weight loss drug is calming down. Currently, there’s no sign that the market for GLP-1 medicines has become saturated, or even done with its initial growth spurt. However, Lilly may need to spend more money in the future in its efforts to capture a larger slice of the market .
These cloudier conditions will persist for a time, but not because eligible patients are becoming less interested in getting treatment.
By necessity, the company is balancing its capital between demand-generating activities like marketing and advertising, and investing in even more manufacturing capacity to meet the demand. Eventually, it’ll need to more aggressively fight competitors like Novo Nordisk for market share, and the outlays required for that fight will be headwinds to its earnings until expenditures reach a steadier state.
Demand isn’t going anywhere
Despite the above, there are still a couple of silver linings that provide more than enough reason to be bullish about this stock.
The first silver lining is that tirzepatide is still a blockbuster drug, and demand for it is far more likely to return to growth than it is to continue plateauing. The company is conducting more research and development (R&D) work to expand the set of approved indications for the treatment — an effort that has already increased the size of its addressable market compared to what it was when the drug first earned regulatory approval. Furthermore, as Lilly’s manufacturing capacity increases over time, it will be able to recapture some of the revenue it’s currently losing to third-party compounding pharmacies making tirzepatide under a temporary legal mechanism intended to ease shortages.
The other silver lining is that, as shown by Lilly’s global portfolio of medicines in Q3, the company has plenty of leeway to increase earnings by hiking prices whether or not there’s more demand than it can supply. Globally, a 6% increase in prices and a 15% increase in prescription volume led to a 20% increase in quarterly revenue to $11.4 billion. If it continues to see worse-than-anticipated sales volumes in the U.S., adjusting prices upward before entering new international markets could help to close the gap.
In conclusion, don’t bet against Lilly because of one quarter that didn’t go exactly as planned. The company still has plenty more growth on the way, and it’s coming soon.