Wall Street Lifts Obesity Drug Targets For Eli Lilly And Abbvie As Medicare Coverage Expands
Eli Lilly shares are trading near record highs after JPMorgan raised its price target on the stock to $1,400 from $1,300 while reiterating an overweight rating, according toreporting from NAI 500. The new target implies more than 13 percent upside even after this week's gains, and comes as Lilly's market capitalization has swelled past $1.1 trillion on the strength of its GLP 1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound.
The upgrade lands during a broadly bullish stretch for large cap pharma. AbbVie, whose recent strength is driven mainly by its immunology franchise of Skyrizi and Rinvoq rather than obesity, has drawn its own string of price target increases in recent sessions, including moves to $265 from Cantor Fitzgerald, $300 from HSBC and $261 from Guggenheim, according to analyst notes tracked byTipRanks.
AdvertisementDemand for the drugs has been reinforced by a new Medicare policy. Starting July 1, the program's GLP 1 Bridge initiative made Zepbound and Lilly's oral pill Foundayo available to eligible Medicare patients for as little as $50 a month. Analysts have pointed to a large addressable market of around 20 million Medicare patients who could ultimately benefit from obesity drugs as access expands, though the number who qualify for the Bridge program specifically is expected to be considerably smaller. In its most recent quarter, Lilly reported Mounjaro and Zepbound combined for about $12.8 billion in global sales, and the company raised its full year revenue guidance to a range of $82 billion to $85 billion.
Editor's take: A JPMorgan target that still implies double digit upside after a stock is already near record highs, layered on top of a fresh Medicare subsidy reaching millions of new patients, suggests Wall Street thinks the obesity drug market is still in its early innings rather than a story that has already played out in the share price.
Price targets above are analyst estimates, not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially. Research biotech and pharma stocks at Investorideas'sfree stock directory.
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