Eli Lilly jumps into the tech-dominated $1 trillion club
Lilly is crossing $1 trillion in market cap just as Wall Street is getting jittery over a potential AI bubble.
Eli Lilly, propelled by sales of its blockbuster weight-loss drugs, joined tech giants including Nvidia and Apple as it hit a $1 trillion valuation on Friday.
The American pharmaceutical giant’s market cap eclipsed $1 trillion shortly after markets opened on Friday and floated around the mark throughout the day before closing at $1.002 trillion. The only other non-technology company to pass a $1 trillion valuation is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
The growth is largely thanks to Lilly’s diabetes and weight-loss shots, Mounjaro and Zepbound, which have quickly become the most-sold drugs in the world. The company has solidified its dominance in GLP-1 market, beating out Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk, an early entrant and its top rival in the space.
Lilly is joining the club at a bit of an awkward time. Investors are growing increasingly worried that the artificial intelligence gold rush they envisioned when they poured their money into tech companies may not be everything it was cracked up to be.
Lilly is comparably less speculative — which is saying a lot for a pharmaceutical company.
The company manufactures and sells real, tangible products that are in high demand and are producing billions of dollars in revenue right now. While it won’t have exclusive rights to those drugs forever and it’s unclear what company will make the next blockbuster GLP-1, Lilly’s pipeline is seen as competitive.
“Of course, everybody would like to be in our position, but we’re focused on defending it and mostly just executing the play we have,” Lilly CEO David Ricks told analysts last month.
