American pharmaceutical company, run by David Ricks. Its GLP-1 agonist Mounjaro was launched in 2022 for diabetes, followed by Zepbound, a version aimed specifically at weight loss, approved in America in November 2023—more than two years after Novo Nordisk's rival drug Wegovy. Zepbound targets both the GLP-1 and GIP hormones; the dual action produces greater weight loss than Wegovy. Mounjaro and Zepbound swept doctors and patients into their camp the moment they launched, at the expense of Novo's earlier offerings. In a head-to-head trial, patients on Zepbound lost 20% of their body weight, compared with 14% for Wegovy. A third of Zepbound users shed at least 25%, twice the share for Wegovy. In its first year Zepbound yielded $4.9bn in revenue.
The company resolved its supply issues earlier than Novo managed with Wegovy. Lilly bypassed intermediaries and went straight to patients, offering low-dose Zepbound vials online for $399—well below the wholesale list price of about $1,100. It also partnered with telehealth providers, including Hims & Hers, to broaden its reach. Zepbound's list price is about $1,000 a month, compared with $1,350 for Wegovy. In late 2025 both Lilly and Novo struck deals with the Trump administration to provide Medicare with discounted access to their obesity drugs, at roughly a third less than commercial-insurer prices; in return, Medicare agreed to cover the treatments for the first time.
Patrik Jonsson heads Lilly's weight-loss division. The company's pipeline includes orforglipron, an oral weight-loss pill that is cheaper to manufacture than Novo's rival pill and can be taken without fasting. Analysts reckon orforglipron will provide $16bn in annual sales by 2030. In April 2026 the FDA approved a new Lilly weight-loss pill only 50 days after filing, having been granted a priority voucher. The unusually fast approval followed Lilly's pledge to invest $27bn in American manufacturing and an agreement to lower prices for its weight-loss medicines in the country.
Over the past four years Lilly has spent $21bn on capital expenditure, equivalent to around 11% of sales—twice Roche's share and two and a half times Pfizer's. Analysts expect Lilly to hold 47% of a $90bn-plus weight-loss drug market by 2030, to Novo's 40%.
Lilly's pipeline also includes retatrutide, an experimental drug with higher kilo-shedding potential than current offerings.
In 2025 Lilly began selling Mounjaro in India at about $180 a month—a quarter of the American price. By September it was the country's second-bestselling branded medicine. Mounjaro and Wegovy were approved by Chinese regulators in 2024, but with supplies tight Lilly focused first on rich markets, particularly America. Lilly also has a partnership with Innovent, a Chinese biotech firm, which won approval in 2025 for mazdutide, a weight-loss drug about as effective as Lilly's own version.
Lilly has a contract with Isomorphic Labs, a London-based Alphabet spin-out, to test candidate drug molecules' interactions with target proteins using AI protein-design tools. In 2025 Lilly teamed up with Nvidia to build the pharma industry's most powerful supercomputer.
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.