By Dean Seal
Eli Lilly’s revenue surged in the last quarter of 2023 on higher prices and volume growth from its popular weight-loss drugs.
The pharmaceutical company posted a profit of $2.19 billion, or $2.42 a share, compared with $1.94 billion, or $2.14 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier.
Stripping out one-time items, adjusted earnings were $2.49 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had been expecting $2.30 a share.
Revenue came in at $9.35 billion, up from $7.3 billion and topping analysts’ expectations of $8.95 billion, according to FactSet.
The 28% top-line jump was driven by new products, led by weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, as well as higher prices and volumes, along with a favorable impact on foreign exchange rates. Higher prices for Mounjaro offset lower prices for Humalog insulin and the diabetes treatment Trulicity.
The higher realized prices improved gross margin by 2.1 percentage points to 80.9% of revenue, though higher manufacturing costs from increased labor and capacity expansion were a headwind.
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com
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