LLY – Fountainheadinvesting

Eli Lilly (LLY) $790 Pre-Market – Up 6% – We’ve had a Buy on it and will continue to add on declines.

Lilly posted great results, but more importantly raised 2024 guidance by $2Bn (5-6%), leading to the pre-market jump! Obesity drugs have a huge demand, which they’re struggling to fill.

Eli Lilly press release (NYSE: LLY): Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $2.58 beats by $0.09.

Revenue of $8.77B (+26.0% Y/Y) misses by $160M.

Revenue in Q1 2024 increased by 26%, driven by Mounjaro, Zepbound, Verzenio and Jardiance.

2024 full-year revenue guidance raised by $2.0 billion; reported EPS guidance raised $1.25 to be in the range of $13.05 to $13.55 and non-GAAP EPS guidance raised $1.30 to be in the range of $13.50 to $14.00 vs $12.46 Consensus.

Eli Lilly – (LLY) $740 Buy on declines, Long term annual return 11-16%.

Eli Lilly’s forecasted earnings and revenue growth for the next three years are very impressive at a CAGR of 28% and 16%, respectively. To put that in context, it’s a lot higher than the 11% and 6%, 10-year average.

Why?

Three blockbuster drugs mainly

Mounjaro, weight loss grew 8X

Verenzio, Breast Cancer grew 56%

Jardiance, Blood Sugar grew 33%.

A big chunk of this is already priced into the stock, which has doubled from last year and quotes an expensive 58x earnings or a PEG of over 2. So we’re late to the party. However, given the higher multiples afforded to Big Pharma, specially the ones with massive pipelines that keep bringing new drugs to the market, Eli could still quote 35-40X 2027 earnings of $29, or between $1,015 to $1,160. That translates into an annual gain of 11% to 16%. That’s still quite good given the pedigree and size.

Eli is also very profitable with great operating margins of 30%.

This should also give us some diversification from the heavy reliance on tech and semis, two sectors that are getting overpriced.