New trial data confirms Eli Lilly’s pole position in the highly competitive obesity drug race. The news is Eli Lilly’s obesity drug Zipbound in the first head-to-head trial comparing the fast-growing weight-loss treatment – to its main rival Vigovi – made by Denmark’s Novo Nordisk. Eli Lilly said in a press release Wednesday that Zypound patients lost an average of 20.2 percent of their body weight after 72 weeks of taking the drug, compared with 13.7 percent among those taking Vigovi. Additionally, about 32% of people on Zepbound lost at least a quarter of their body weight compared to 16% on Wegovy, according to the Indianapolis-based drugmaker. Shares of Eli Lilly, a longtime portfolio name, rose more than 2.5 percent to about $833 on Wednesday. Novo Nordisk gained about half a percent. The Big Picture Zepbound and Wegovy belong to a growing class of obesity drugs known as GLP-1s, which some on Wall Street expect to be worth at least $100 billion by the end of the decade. will Initially used to treat type 2 diabetes, their weight-loss abilities have captivated the public and Wall Street alike in recent years, sending the stocks of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to extraordinary heights. has delivered Lilly, in particular, has ridden the GLP-1 wave to become the world’s most valuable health care company, worth nearly $800 billion. The drugs mimic the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone that helps regulate blood sugar and suppress appetite, leading to weight loss. Zepbound’s active ingredient, tirzepatide, also targets another hormone called GIP, which is thought to provide efficacy advantages over Vigovi. Both drugs are once-weekly injections. Indeed, the results released by Eli Lilly on Wednesday are not necessarily surprising given the current stack of clinical trial data to see the two drugs isolated. But given the caveats required when comparing results from independent trials, it’s important to officially see how Zepbound and Wegoy performed on a head-to-head basis. Peer-reviewed results are due next year. “We expect the results of the HTH (head-to-head) clinical trial to help ZipBound accelerate market share over Vigovi,” Leernik analysts wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. The analysts added that they wanted to see what the tolerability of the two drugs looked like — something missing from Lilly’s press release. Novo Nordisk was the first to market Vigovi in 2021 after receiving Food and Drug Administration approval for obesity. Its sister drug Ozempic, which shares an active ingredient with Wegovy called semaglutide, was approved in 2017 to treat type-2 diabetes. The most popular GLP-1 drug and some people take it for weight loss purposes. The FDA approved Zipbound in November 2023. Lilly’s Mounjaro, which has tirzepatide as its active ingredient, was cleared for type-2 diabetes in May 2022. The success of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in the GLP-1 market has set off a crowd-sourced race in the pharmaceutical industry. The next hit obesity drug. Novo and Lilly are aggressively defending their turf, investing billions of dollars to expand the manufacturing capacity needed to meet current demand while advancing clinical trials of next-generation therapies. are Investors expect a major update on Novo’s next-generation Kegri-Sema by the end of the year, with expectations that it could deliver more than 25 percent weight reduction in late-stage trials. The drug combines semaglutide with a compound called cagrelantide. The top product in Eli Lilly’s pipeline is retatrotide, which produced an average of 24% weight loss in a 48-week mid-phase study released last summer. A third phase trial is underway. The Bottom Line We feel even better about our decision to increase Eli Lilly’s position last week — shortly after, we got the very important news that the Biden administration had proposed changes that would make GLP- 1s would expand coverage to millions of Americans on Medicare. and Medicaid that are not currently accessible. We now have test results that show Zepbound is, as we long suspected, superior to Wegovy. Shares of Eli Lilly sold off last month on concerns that President-elect Donald Trump would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of the pharmaceutical industry, to be America’s top health official. However, the stock is now up more than 14% since closing at around $727 apiece on November 18. Our trading restrictions prevented us from increasing our position that day, although we still expressed our desire to members. LLY YTD Mountain Eli Lilly YTD “I think [Lilly stock] Should be back to the $900 level,” Jim Cramer said in Wednesday’s morning meeting. “I think the only gating factor is… [Lilly CEO] Do Ricks have the capacity to meet the demand? That’s really a problem.” Since coming to market, both Zepbound and Mounjaro have spent considerable time on the FDA’s drug shortage list. As of Wednesday, however, the FDA says the shortages have been resolved. Lilly executives said the company’s late October earnings call for drug production should increase further in 2025. (See Jim Cramer’s charitable trust long LLY for a full list of stocks here.) CNBC with Jim Cramer Investing Club As a subscriber to, you will receive a trade alert before Jim sends a trade alert before he buys or sells a stock in his charitable trust portfolio if Jim has talked about the stock on CNBC TV. 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A sign with the company’s logo sits outside the Eli Lilly & Company headquarters campus on March 17, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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New trial data has strengthened the club’s holdings. Eli LillyPole position in the highly competitive obesity drug race.