INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Eli Lilly’s diabetes remedy Mounjaro, which is broadly used for weight reduction, raked in practically $1 billion in second-quarter gross sales, or greater than $200 million above what Wall Street had anticipated.

Shares of the drugmaker soared 17% to an all-time-high Tuesday after Lilly mentioned Mounjaro gross sales swelled greater than 70% for the reason that first quarter to $980 million. Almost all of that got here from the U.S., and the corporate mentioned important demand was resulting in delays in filling orders for some doses.

Analysts anticipated the drug to usher in about $740 million in the course of the quarter, in keeping with FactSet.

Executives mentioned Tuesday that they anticipate tight provides will result in some spot shortages of Ozempic by way of 12 months’s finish. Lilly is constructing a brand new manufacturing plant in North Carolina and increasing at one other location there.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration permitted Mounjaro on the finish of final 12 months’s second quarter to deal with kind 2 diabetes, however analysts see plenty of potential for it within the booming marketplace for weight-loss therapies, and docs have already been prescribing it off-label for that.

Regulators are at present deciding whether or not to additionally make weight reduction an permitted use. Lilly mentioned earlier this 12 months that the injectable remedy helped folks with kind 2 diabetes who have been obese or overweight to lose as much as 16% of their physique weight, or greater than 34 kilos, over practically 17 months.

If permitted, Lilly’s drug would compete with Novo Nordisk’s standard weight reduction drug Wegovy — additionally bought to handle diabetes underneath the model Ozempic — in a wave of latest choices that's altering the remedy of weight problems.

Separately, Novo mentioned Tuesday that early outcomes from a big, late-stage research of Wegovy confirmed that it reduce the chance of great coronary heart issues by 20%. That was higher than anticipated.

The Danish drugmaker mentioned weekly injections of the best dose of the medicine recognized generically as semaglutide slashed the chance of coronary heart assault, stroke and coronary heart disease-related deaths in individuals who have been obese or overweight and had recognized heart problems, however not kind 2 diabetes.

Results from the trial, performed on greater than 17,000 folks in 41 international locations, may bode properly for all medicine in Wegovy’s class as a result of it might make insurers and different well being care invoice payers extra more likely to cowl them, Leerink analyst David Risinger mentioned in a analysis observe.

It additionally may pave the way in which for wider use past weight reduction, docs mentioned.

Analysts have predicted that Lilly‘s drug, recognized generically as tirzepatide, may develop into one of many top-selling medicine ever, with annual gross sales topping $50 billion.

In the not too long ago accomplished second quarter, Mounjaro gross sales helped carry Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to a better-than-expected efficiency.

Overall, Lilly’s revenue jumped 85% within the second quarter to greater than $1.76 billion. Revenue rose 28% to $8.31 billion. Adjusted earnings totaled $2.11 per share.

Analysts anticipated, on common, earnings of $1.98 per share on $6.86 billion in income.

Shares of Lilly jumped greater than 17%, or practically $80, to $533.83 in noon buying and selling. Broader indexes slipped.

That eclipsed the inventory’s earlier all-time-high value of $469.87, which Lilly hit on the finish of June.

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Associated Press well being reporter JoNel Aleccia contributed to this story from Temecula, California. Murphy reported from Indianapolis.

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