Big COVID-19-Related Sales Drive Lilly’s Strong Q4 Performance

Fourth quarter and full-year 2020 revenue were going to tell a growth story driven by products launched since 2014, as Eli Lilly and Company had hoped, but pandemic-related business took the pharma’s quarterly sales performance to another level as it reported its financial performance to investors on 29 January.

Lilly reported global fourth quarter sales of $7.44bn, up 22% year-over-year, but the growth rate fell to a still solid 7% if the impact of COVID-19 neutralizing antibody therapy bamlanivimab was excluded. The product, which obtained emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in November, brought in $871m during the quarter – all but $21m of it in the US – as bamlanivimab at least temporarily became Lilly’s second-biggest seller behind GLP-1 analog Trulicity (dulaglutide) for type 2 diabetes