ELI LILLY & Co (LLY): what the price requires
At today's price, ELI LILLY & Co (LLY) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~5.3 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/LLY
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | LLY |
| Company | ELI LILLY & Co |
| Current price | $1189.52/sh |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 12.0% |
| Operating margin today | 40.1% |
| Margin compression implied | -28.1pp |
| Must persist for | 5.3y |
| Multiple paid | 44x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 9, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8.2% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 30.5% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~1.5 years.
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~6.7 years; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: extreme
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | +2.61σ |
| cohort percentile (of 112 peers) | 88 |
| sustained it ~5.3 years at this level | 27% |
| implied end-window share | 1% |
Valuation X-Ray
Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 3.12x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 4.86x | 4 | expensive |
| Relative | 2.36x | 4 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.87x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=15)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $943.32 | 1.26x | yes | FCF base $22.5B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.1%, 7yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $1368.36 | 0.87x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 2165.5x / 2168.5x / 2171.5x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $997.18 | 1.19x | yes | P/E 29.45x (blended: static sector reference 24x + trailing (TTM) 42x), scenarios: 23.6x / 29.4x / 35.3x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 35.2x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $305.01 | 3.90x | yes | BV/sh $34.82, ROE (TTM) 81.0%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $1539.21 | 0.77x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $1404.17 | 0.85x | yes | Rev $72.2B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 9.6x / 12.0x / 14.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $337.80 | 3.52x | yes | EPS $28.15, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=21.25 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | $510.03 | 2.33x | yes | BV $34.82 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 81.0% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $148.51 | 8.01x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $28.15 × BVPS $34.82) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $0.01 | 118951.50x | yes | EBITDA $0.51B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x (excluded from median) |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $204.62 | 5.81x | yes | FCF $20480.4M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $196.98 | 6.04x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $19.85B (FCF $20.48B − SBC $0.63B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $908.31 | 1.31x | yes | EPS $28.15 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $322.58 | 3.69x | yes | Revenue $72.25B × sector P/S 4.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $1055.63 | 1.13x | yes | EPS $28.15 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $304.32 | 3.91x | yes | EPS $28.15 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $38.0b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 1.73x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 1.44x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -0.3% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- Eli Lilly has become the dominant force in the GLP-1 drug class, with Mounjaro and Zepbound driving Q1 2026 revenue up 56% to $19.8 billion, and the recent FDA approval of an oral version, orforglipron, opening a far larger addressable market than injectables alone.
- The defining risk is concentration married to price: the 10-K states Lilly derives "a significant percentage of our total revenue from relatively few products", and the stock trades at roughly 41 times operating income, at the very top of the pharma peer distribution.
- Watch the orforglipron launch and capacity: the oral drug logged 20,000 prescriptions in its first 20 days with 80% of patients new to GLP-1s, so the markers are the launch ramp and whether manufacturing keeps pace with demand.
Bull Case
One number anchors the entire Lilly thesis: Mounjaro revenue grew 125% year over year to $8.7 billion in a single quarter. That is not a product launch; it is one of the fastest demand ramps in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, and it is happening alongside Zepbound, the obesity-indicated version of the same molecule, which grew 79% to $4.1 billion in the U.S. The decisive question for the stock is whether GLP-1 demand is a durable secular shift in how the world treats diabetes and obesity, and the volume answer the market is watching keeps coming back the same way: up, fast, and broadening internationally, with revenue outside the U.S. roughly quadrupling year over year as supply reached new markets.
The structural advantage is that Lilly is not renting this position; it owns the molecule and increasingly the manufacturing that gates it. The 10-K acknowledges the obvious concentration but the flip side is dominance: a company that derives most of its revenue from a few products is fragile only if those products are vulnerable, and tirzepatide is patent-protected, clinically differentiated, and supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained. The bull case is that the binding limit on Lilly's growth has been how fast it can build manufacturing capacity, not how many patients want the drug, which is the rarest and most valuable constraint a company can have. Lilly has been pouring capital into capacity precisely because every incremental dose it can make, it can sell.
The optionality on top is the oral GLP-1, and it is the part the static valuation methods cannot price. Orforglipron, approved and branded Foundayo, removes the two biggest barriers to GLP-1 adoption: the injection and the cold-chain manufacturing. An oral pill that delivers efficacy the Phase 3 ACHIEVE trials showed competitive with injectables can be manufactured at a fraction of the cost and distributed through normal pharmacy channels, which expands the addressable population from the motivated injectable user to essentially anyone with a prescription. The early signal is striking: 20,000 prescriptions in the first 20 days, with 80% of those patients new to GLP-1s entirely. That last figure is the bull case distilled, the oral drug is not cannibalizing the injectables; it is opening a new market. Return on equity above 80% and operating margins above 36% mean Lilly converts this demand into cash at a rate almost no company of its size achieves, and the durable-compounding premium the price pays is, on the volume evidence so far, being earned.
Bear Case
Begin with the qualitative truth before any ratio: Lilly is a magnificent company at a price that assumes magnificence continues uninterrupted for years, and that is a different proposition from owning the company. The bear case is not that the GLP-1 franchise is bad. It is that the price has run so far ahead of even an extraordinary business that the margin for any disappointment has been priced away. No valuation family except forward growth reaches the price. The earnings-power method, capitalizing today's substantial profit with no growth credit, lands at roughly a fifth of the price. The peer-multiple lens, even blending in Lilly's elevated trailing multiple, sits at half. The price is a bet that only the most optimistic frame can justify, and that is the structural definition of fragility.
Translate the disconnect into the requirement. At roughly 41 times company-wide operating income, the price requires operating profit to grow about 30% a year for five years, a pace that runs well above what even Lilly has actually delivered over a full cycle and that only about 27% of comparable fast-growers historically sustained for even five years. The multiple sits at the very top of the entire pharmaceutical peer group, beyond the upper quartile. For that bet to pay, GLP-1 demand must not merely stay strong; it must compound at an extraordinary rate while Lilly defends its share against the one competitor with a comparable franchise and the wave of next-generation entrants every large pharma is now funding. The history of blockbuster drugs is a history of eventual competition, pricing pressure, and patent cliffs, and the price gives almost no weight to that arc.
The concentration risk is the bear's sharpest point because Lilly states it itself. The 10-K warns that the company derives "a significant percentage of our total revenue from relatively few products" and that it has "faced, and remain exposed to, generic or biosimilar competition following the expiration or loss" of intellectual property protection. A franchise this concentrated is a magnificent thing on the way up and a dangerous thing if anything impairs the core molecule, whether a manufacturing setback, a safety signal that emerges at scale, a pricing intervention from payers or policymakers facing a drug class that could become a national budget line, or simply the eventual patent expiry that all drugs face. The price embeds none of these. A stock at 41 times operating income on a few products is underwriting that the best-case path is also the only path, and pharmaceutical history rarely cooperates with that assumption.
Valuation
The price assumes Lilly stays exceptional, and the only honest way to frame the valuation is to measure how exceptional. At today's level the market pays roughly 41 times company-wide operating income, which inverts to a requirement of about 30% operating-profit growth a year for five years. That is a demanding bet on continued execution: the pace runs well above Lilly's own historical delivery, and the multiple sits at the very top of the pharmaceutical peer distribution, well beyond the upper quartile. The price is not paying for a good drug company; it is paying for the single best growth story in large-cap pharma to keep being the best, for years.
The method pattern is the durability-premium configuration in its purest form. Only the forward-growth lens reaches the price: a perpetual-growth DCF crediting 25% growth lands near it, and a discounted future-market-cap model on 30% tapered growth lands above it. Every static frame says expensive. The earnings-power method, capitalizing normalized operating profit with no growth, lands near a fifth of the price. The peer-multiple lens, anchored on a blended P/E near 28 times, sits at roughly half. The asset-value methods are distorted by Lilly's extraordinary 81% return on equity against a thin $34.82 book value, so they split, with the simple excess-return read far below the price and the two-stage version, crediting years of that elite return, landing near it. The honest summary: the demonstrated profit supports a price far below today's, and the entire premium is the market crediting the GLP-1 secular growth the static methods structurally cannot frame.
Cohort position sharpens how unusual the bet is. The peer set, large pharma names like Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, and GSK, trades at high-single to mid-teens earnings multiples appropriate to mature, patent-cliff-exposed franchises, and Lilly trades at a multiple several times that group, which is the market's verdict that Lilly is not in their growth category. That verdict is defensible on the volume evidence, but it is also the source of the asymmetry: a stock priced multiples above its own sector for a growth rate that history says fades has the most to lose if the growth merely normalizes. Solvency is not the concern, with strong cash generation and modest leverage funding the capacity build. The decisive fact is the multiple against the inevitability of competition and patent life. The buyer at this price is underwriting that the GLP-1 franchise compounds at a rate the static methods call a bet beyond what any standard frame supports, and that orforglipron extends rather than merely defends it.
Catalysts
The Q1 2026 print was a blowout and it reset guidance upward. Revenue rose 56% to $19.8 billion, GAAP earnings were $8.26 per diluted share, and adjusted EPS of $8.55 crushed the roughly $6.66 analysts expected. Mounjaro grew 125% to $8.7 billion and U.S. Zepbound grew 79% to $4.1 billion, and on that strength Lilly raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $82 billion to $85 billion and adjusted EPS guidance to $35.50 to $37.00. International expansion was a major driver, with ex-U.S. Mounjaro revenue roughly quadrupling as supply reached new markets.
The defining catalyst is orforglipron, the oral GLP-1 branded Foundayo. The drug succeeded across the Phase 3 ACHIEVE program in type 2 diabetes and showed superior glycemic control and weight loss versus oral semaglutide in a head-to-head trial, with obesity results from the ATTAIN program supporting global regulatory submissions. The early commercial signal is the one to watch: 20,000 prescriptions in the first 20 days, with 80% of patients new to GLP-1 therapy, which suggests the oral formulation is expanding the market rather than cannibalizing the injectables. Regulatory submissions for obesity are advancing with action expected as early as next year, a sequence of approval catalysts that extends well beyond the current franchise.
The watch items cut both ways. On the upside, track the orforglipron launch ramp, obesity regulatory decisions, and whether manufacturing capacity keeps converting demand into revenue. On the downside, the markers are competitive, the trajectory of the rival GLP-1 franchise and the next-generation pipeline across the industry, and policy, since a drug class large enough to move national health budgets invites pricing scrutiny that the company's own risk disclosures flag. For a stock priced at the top of its sector, the catalysts that matter most are any that would reveal whether the extraordinary growth rate is sustaining or beginning to normalize, because that is the single variable the valuation has the least room to absorb.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Pharmaceutical products (single reportable segment) (reported)
- MRK (Merck & Co., Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PFE (Pfizer Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BMY (Bristol-Myers Squibb Company)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ABBV (AbbVie Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- NVS (Novartis AG)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AZN (ASTRAZENECA PLC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GSK (GSK plc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AMGN (Amgen Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Q1 FY2026 earnings release · FY2025 10-K · company FY2026 results · orforglipron Phase 3 results and FDA approval, 2026 · FY2025 10-K risk factors · orforglipron Phase 3 results, 2026