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The weight-loss drug boom has transformed Eli Lilly (LLY+1.96%), the maker of Zepbound, into the largest healthcare company in the world. Now, the pharma giant wants to reinvest its success with weight-loss meds into tackling some of the world’s toughest health challenges.
“I think the obesity opportunity has both been eye-opening in terms of the impact to human health that a company can have,” Eli Lilly chief scientific officer Dan Skovronsky told CNBC in an interview. “And then also it’s given us the resources to look for other [opportunities].”
Skovronsky told the outlet that the company is now working to tackle other diseases like Alzheimer’s, neurodegenerative diseases, heart health and even hearing loss.
Eli Lilly first launched its diabetes medication Mounjaro in 2022. A year later, it started selling the same drug for weight loss under the brand Zepbound. The treatments belong to a class of drugs known as GLP-1s, made popular by Novo Nordisk’s (NVO+5.51%) Ozempic, that mimic gut hormones that regulate blood sugar and suppress appetite.
These drugs have propelled the company’s sales in recent years. Zepbound sales alone reached $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with $176 million during the same period in 2023, when it first launched. The company’s total sales for the year across all drugs came to $45 billion. Eli Lilly projects that sales in 2025 will reach between $58 billion and $61 billion.
The company’s stock price has surged over 200% in the past three years. It currently has a market cap of $785 billion.
Eli Lilly last year launched a treatment for Alzheimer’s and is already testing it for the prevention of the disease, Skovronsky said. He also highlighted the company’s work in gene therapy: In one trial, the company has been able to restore a patient’s hearing.
“As right now Eli Lilly is the biggest healthcare company in the world, probably the biggest healthcare company in the world ever, we have an obligation,” Skovronsky told CNBC (CMCSA+0.07%). “We see that as an obligation to invest in some of these big problems that are hiding in plain sight, to try and make a difference for the health of humanity.”