Another Twist In The Obesity Pills Showdown That Actually Helps Lilly

 The prescription data collected for Eli Lilly'sLLY new weight-loss pill, Foundayo, is flawed, analysts said Friday. Wall Street's take buoyed Lilly stock on the heels of its blowout first-quarter report.

This is the first time Eli Lilly shares have risen on Foundayo prescription data — namely because the new pill has consistently underperformed its key rival, Wegovy Pill from Novo NordiskNVO.

But analysts now say there's a reason why. On Thursday, the company said 20,000 patients have started treatment with Foundayo. IqviaIQV, which keeps tabs on prescriptions, has tracked around just 10,000 total prescriptions, Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said in a report.

"It appears there is a capture rate issue with the data," RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh said in a client note. "It is difficult to know what the current capture rate is, as the weeks do not align with the 3.5-week, 20,000-patient disclosure from LLY yesterday."

Eli Lilly stock bounded 3.1% higher to 963.33. That follows a nearly 10% jump on Thursday following the first-quarter report. Novo shares also jumped 3.9% to 43.88.

Shares of both also benefited from a Food and Drug Administration proposal that would largely eliminate compounding of semaglutide and tirzepatide, the backbones behind Novo's and Lilly's biggest weight-loss and diabetes drugs.

Investors have closely watched the early days of Foundayo's launch, comparing each week to Novo's oral Wegovy. Wegovy Pill launched in January, with Foundayo coming online in April.

In each week, Foundayo has lagged the same-week comparison to Wegovy Pill. In its third week on the market, Iqvia says Foundayo had 5,612 total prescriptions, significantly lower than the roughly 26,000 recorded for Wegovy Pill in its third week of launch.

The figures "are significantly understated," Leerink's Risinger said.

The data show 82% of the prescriptions come from the mail channel, which is likely Eli Lilly's direct-to-consumer website, LillyDirect, RBC's Huynh said. Another 12% came from chain stores.

In contrast, 60% to 70% of the prescriptions for oral Wegovy were filled by chain stores in the first weeks of its launch. He noted NovoCare Pharmacy, Novo's direct-to-consumer site, is much smaller than LillyDirect.

"In our post-call with LLY, they noted the retail channel is based on a small sample and the telehealth channel, which accounts for ~35% of Foundayo (total prescription) share, has more data gaps still."

Huynh says weeks eight through 12 will be most telling for Foundayo's launch.

"Prior to that, the data is clouded by channel fill dynamics, sampling programs, and volatile capture rates across telehealth and LillyDirect channels, dynamics that LLY IR has explicitly flagged," he said.

More broadly, analysts remain impressed with Lilly's performance. Three analysts hiked their price targets on Eli Lilly stock in the wake of the first-quarter report, according to FactSet. BofA Securities analyst Jason Gerberry did the opposite, cutting his target to 1,133 from 1,294.

He says there are still uncertainties ahead for GLP-1s, which account for 65% of Lilly's business.

Still, he described the first-quarter report as "solid" as Foundayo prescriptions pick up and Mounjaro continues to outperform, particularly abroad. Mounjaro is Lilly's type 2 diabetes drug based on tirzepatide, the same ingredient behind its weight-loss shot, Zepbound.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/there-s-another-twist-in-the-obesity-pills-showdown-and-this-one-actually-helps-lilly/ar-AA22aZWD