With the global popularity of "weight loss pills", the stock price of American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has recently reached a historic high. In the eyes of billionaire investor and co-founder of Home Depot, Ken Langone, Eli Lilly's stock price prospects are bright, with the potential to become the first pharmaceutical company in history worth over a trillion dollars.
"I think Lilly will become the first pharmaceutical company in history worth trillions of dollars," Langney said in a media interview on Wednesday. "Why? Because of their research and development pipeline. May God bless (former CEO) John Lehrett. In the dark years when everything fell off a cliff, he was firmly committed to using funds for research and development and maintaining dividends."
Langney stated that the bright future of Lilly is closely related to the previous leadership of Lehlet. "He said, 'We won't cut research and development funds, we will focus our efforts to ensure that our investments receive greater returns. They did it.'"
Langny has always been a long-term shareholder of Lilly, and on Wednesday he stated that as early as 2015, Lilly had been his preferred stock. "In the 46 years I held it, including dividends, the compound annual growth rate of (the stock) reached 14.8%," he said.
The stock price surged by over 60% this year
Since this year, GLP-1 weight-loss drugs have become popular all over the world. With Mounjaro, a diabetes medicine, and Zepbound, a weight-loss drug, Lilly's share price has soared by nearly 64%, becoming one of the biggest winners of the global craze for weight-loss drugs.
Earlier this month, Lilly announced that its weight loss drug Zepbound had been launched in American pharmacies and was suitable for adults who are overly obese. The main component of Zepbund is telposide, which works by mimicking hormones, stimulating insulin release, increasing satiety, and reducing appetite. Since 2022, Lilly's Tilporide has been marketed as a drug Mounjaro for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
In May of this year, Lilly surpassed Johnson&Johnson to become the world's largest pharmaceutical company by market value. The current market value of Lilly is approximately $567.2 billion, with more than 76% room for growth compared to the trillion dollar market value expected by Langney.
At the same time, the stock price of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has surged with GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, and the stock has risen nearly 45% so far this year.
In stark contrast to the endless glory of Lilly and Novo Nordisk, some other pharmaceutical stocks are struggling.
Taking Pfizer as an example, the company's stock price has fallen by nearly 50% so far this year. On Wednesday, Pfizer's stock price fell after predicting that its 2024 sales may be $5 billion lower than Wall Street's expectations as revenue from COVID-19 vaccines and treatments continued to slow.