Why Eli Lilly Stock Trounced the Market on Tuesday

Key Points

• The company's orforglipron did quite well in a phase 3 clinical trial.

• The weight-loss pill has excellent potential in the hot market for such drugs.

• 10 stocks we like better than Eli Lilly ›

There's nothing like a successful clinical trial of a high-potential medicine to blast a pharmaceutical company's stock price higher. That was the dynamic behind Eli Lilly's (NYSE: LLY) nearly 6% gain on Tuesday, which easily beat the S&P 500's (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) 0.4% bump higher.

Weight-loss pill passes the test

Well before market open, Eli Lilly announced the top-line results from a phase 3 trial of its orforglipron, an orally administered GLP-1 weight loss drug akin to its Zepbound and healthcare sector rival Novo Nordisk's Wegovy. The company said that orforglipron met all of its primary, and the key secondary, endpoints.

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The highest dose of the medication resulted in patients losing an average of 10.5% of their body weight across the 72-week study. This compared very favorably to the 2.2% of trial participants administered a placebo. Orforglipron was also found to reduce hemoglobin A1C, an indicator of blood sugar levels in the body.

With those results, Eli Lilly said, it now has the full clinical data package to submit orforglipron to regulators such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Blockbuster-to-be?

In the press release detailing the results of the trial, Eli Lilly quoted the president of its cardiometabolic health unit Kenneth Custer as saying, "With these positive data in hand, we are moving with urgency toward global regulatory submissions to potentially meet the needs of patients who are waiting."

"If approved, we are ready to offer a convenient, once-daily pill that can be scaled globally -- removing barriers and redefining how obesity is treated around the world," he added.

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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.