Eli Lilly & Company, due to the success of its obesity treatment medication, achieved a 170% increase in first-quarter revenue.

American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly benefited from a surge in weight loss drug sales, significantly boosting its profitability in the first quarter of 2026, making the competition for global weight loss drug market leadership even more apparent.

In its earnings report released on April 30 (local time), Eli Lilly stated that earnings per share for the first quarter were $8.26, a 170% year-over-year increase. The core of the performance improvement lies in weight loss drugs and diabetes treatment medications. Sales of Mounjaro (generic name: tirzepatide), used to treat diabetes and highly regarded for its weight loss effects, reached $8.66 billion, a 125% increase; sales of the weight loss drug Zepbound also reached $4.16 billion, an 80% increase. This means that weight loss drugs have surpassed mere popular products and have become a core category influencing the performance of major pharmaceutical companies.

The company reflected this trend by once again raising its full-year sales forecast. Eli Lilly now expects full-year sales to be between $82 billion and $85 billion, an upward revision of $2 billion from previous estimates. Market analysts believe that, against the backdrop of rapid growth in the metabolic disease treatment market—where obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are interconnected—companies that can widely supply proven effective products early on are likely to maintain an advantage in performance. On the same day, Eli Lilly’s stock price in the New York Stock Exchange rose more than 9% intraday, which was also interpreted as reflecting these expectations.

Investors are now turning their attention to oral weight loss drugs. Eli Lilly’s new oral drug Orforglipron began sales earlier this month. Although not reflected in the first quarter’s results, it is seen as a new variable to measure future growth potential. So far, the weight loss drug market has been dominated by injectables. However, oral tablet forms, due to their convenience, are expected to attract a broader patient base. Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks listed the approval of Orforglipron by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a key milestone this year, stating that it could significantly expand the population benefiting from GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) therapies.

The competitive landscape has also become clearer. Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk launched Wegovy in 2021, leading the global weight loss drug boom, and later expanded the market with Ozempic. However, recently in the U.S. market, Eli Lilly has gained an advantage in market share with Zepbound and Mounjaro. Against this backdrop, Novo Nordisk launched the tablet form of Wegovy in the U.S. in January this year, followed by Eli Lilly’s release of Orforglipron. In the future, the competition between the two companies will not only continue in the injectable segment but also in the oral weight loss drug market. This trend could expand the future competitive focus of the weight loss drug market to supply capacity, pricing, ease of use, and insurance coverage, thereby changing the growth pattern of the entire pharmaceutical industry.