Eli Lilly’s two flagship medicines brought in almost $15 billion between them in a single three-month stretch, driving a revenue beat large enough that the drugmaker lifted its full-year sales forecast by $3 billion at both ends of the range.

Worldwide Mounjaro revenue rose 91% to $9.9 billion in the second quarter, with U.S. sales of $4.8 billion, up 45%, and international revenue climbing 172% to $5.2 billion. U.S. Zepbound revenue increased 44% to $4.9 billion, driven by demand and partly offset by previously announced cuts to cash-pay prices.

Combined, the two drugs produced $14.9 billion and added $6.3 billion in year-over-year sales. That represented 64.7% of the company’s quarterly revenue.

Total revenue climbed 48% to $23.0 billion, driven by a 60% jump in volume that was partially offset by a 13% drop in realized prices. That figure blew past a consensus estimate of $20.73 billion. Shares rose more than 5% in early trading.

The Guidance Raise

Lilly lifted full-year revenue guidance to a range of $85 billion to $87 billion, up from $82 billion to $85 billion.

The earnings line is more complicated. Reported earnings per share rose 26% to $7.94 and non-GAAP earnings rose 33% to $8.38, both including $3.03 per share in acquired in-process research and development charges against just $0.14 a year earlier. The company raised its underlying non-GAAP earnings guidance by $2.78 at the midpoint, but the acquisition-related charges more than wiped that out, producing a narrowed range of $35.50 to $36.50.

Net income came in at $7.10 billion versus $5.66 billion a year earlier.

Injectables Are Not Losing to Pills

The most consequential finding in the report has nothing to do with the top line.

The industry consensus heading into this year was that oral weight-loss medications would begin pulling patients away from weekly injections. That is not what the quarter showed. The results widened Lilly’s lead over Novo Nordisk even as the Danish rival launched an oral version of Wegovy in the U.S.

Volume growth carried both products past pricing pressure and intensifying competition, which suggests the constraint on this market has never really been patient preference for a pill. It has been access and cost.

Where the Growth Is Coming From

The international numbers deserve more attention than they typically get.

Mounjaro sales outside the U.S. jumped 172%, and Chief Executive David Ricks said the global adoption beat both the company’s own expectations and Wall Street’s by a wide margin. He noted that most patients in large middle-income markets — Brazil, China and India — are paying out of pocket, where Lilly is seeing what he described as strong and durable demand.

Revenue outside the U.S. rose 80% to $8.6 billion, with lower realized prices there driven mainly by Mounjaro’s addition to China’s National Reimbursement Drug List. U.S. revenue increased 33% to $14.4 billion.

That trade — accepting materially lower prices in exchange for national formulary access — is the strategy driving the volume, and it is working.

Ricks has estimated that global GLP-1 use will rise from roughly 20 million patients at the end of last year to 30 million by the end of 2026.

Beyond the Franchise

Lilly is spending heavily to avoid being a two-product company. Research and development expenses rose 14% to $3.8 billion, or 17% of revenue, while marketing, selling and administrative costs increased 25% to $3.4 billion on promotional support for current and planned launches.

There is early evidence the diversification is landing. Key product revenue in immunology, oncology and neuroscience grew 121% year over year. Regulatory wins in the quarter included FDA approval of Ebglyss for an eight-week maintenance dose in moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, European approval of Jaypirca as a monotherapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia across all lines of therapy, and a U.S. submission for orforglipron in type 2 diabetes.

Ricks pointed to the next-generation weight-loss candidate retatrutide with its full clinical data package in hand, new manufacturing capacity coming online, and pipeline additions from business development.

Gross margin reached 85.8% of revenue, up 1.5 percentage points from a year ago on better production costs and favorable product mix.

Lilly crossed a roughly $1 trillion market capitalization earlier this year — a valuation built almost entirely on two molecules that just delivered nearly two-thirds of a quarter’s revenue.

JBizNews Desk | New York

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