Eli Lilly (LLY): 150 years in, one molecule brings 56% of revenue and the company is worth $1 trillion

Eli Lilly discovers, develops, makes and sells medicines, and reports a single business segment: human pharmaceutical products. In 2025 it booked $65.2 billion in revenue, 44.7% more than in 2024, and earned $20.6 billion. Its annual report says Mounjaro and Zepbound “accounted for 56 percent of our total revenues in 2025.” Both are the same molecule, tirzepatide: Mounjaro is sold for type 2 diabetes and Zepbound for obesity. At the Oct 12, 2026 close, the stock was worth $1.05 trillion: 891.4 million shares at $1,182.62.

This profile follows the company through its SEC filings: how it got here, where the revenue comes from, the years whose profit needs a footnote, and who has been buying and selling.

From 1876 to 2026

The drug business was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1876 by Colonel Eli Lilly, and Eli Lilly and Company was incorporated in Indiana in 1901, according to its 2025 annual report. Its fourth-quarter 2025 release described the company as “entering our 150th year.” David A. Ricks has been chair, president and chief executive since 2017.

Where the revenue comes from

Mounjaro was already Lilly’s best seller in 2024, with $11.5 billion; in 2025 it nearly doubled. Trulicity, another diabetes medicine, went the other way: $7.13 billion in 2023, $5.25 billion in 2024 and $4.28 billion in 2025. Grouped by therapeutic area, cardiometabolic medicines were 74.0% of revenue, oncology 14.4%, immunology 8.1% and neuroscience 2.1%. By customer location, the United States was 66.7% of 2025 revenue and Europe 17.7%; in the first half of 2026 the U.S. share fell to 62.0%.

In the second quarter of 2026, growth came from volume: revenue rose 48%, “driven by a 60% increase in volume, partially offset by a 13% decrease in realized prices,” according to the earnings release. The main U.S. compound patent on Mounjaro and Zepbound runs to 2036. In July 2026 several generic drugmakers asked the FDA for approval to sell copies before some or all of the listed patents expire, and Lilly said it intends to sue for patent infringement.

Profit, and the years that need a footnote

Lilly’s numbers restart in 2015. In March 2019 it handed its remaining 80.2% of Elanco, its animal health business, to shareholders who swapped Lilly shares for Elanco shares, and the 2019 annual report restated earlier years without it back to 2015. Older years include Elanco and are not comparable; putting them together creates a drop between 2014 and 2015 that never happened.

• 2017: the loss came from a provisional $1.91 billion tax charge for the 2017 U.S. tax law, booked at once. Before taxes, Lilly earned $2.30 billion.
• 2019: the $8.32 billion includes $3.68 billion from the Elanco disposal; profit from continuing operations was $4.64 billion.
• 2020–2022: revenue includes COVID-19 antibodies — $871 million, $2.24 billion and $2.02 billion.
• 2023: profit fell to $5.24 billion while revenue rose 19.6%. Lilly charged $3.80 billion of acquired in-process research and development, research it buys with acquisitions and expenses at once.

Revenue grew every year of the series, 3.8 times from 2015 to 2025. In the first half of 2026 it rose 51.2%, to $42.8 billion, and net income rose 72.1%, to $14.5 billion, after $3.36 billion of acquired research charges. On August 5 Lilly raised its 2026 revenue forecast to between $85.0 billion and $87.0 billion. That is the company’s guidance, not a result.

Who owns it, and who sold

Lilly’s largest shareholder is the Lilly Endowment, a charitable foundation, with 9.8% in the 2026 proxy statement, ahead of Vanguard (8.6%), BlackRock (6.8%) and PNC (5.4%). Its own Schedule 13G filings show its stake going from 95.5 million shares (10.1%) on September 30, 2025 to 90.4 million (9.6%) on June 30, 2026.

Nine of the 38 investment managers this site tracks reported Lilly in their 13F filings for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, up from eight. The largest holder among them is Cliff Asness of AQR, with 1.04 million shares worth $1.24 billion. Ken Griffin nearly quadrupled his position, and Stanley Druckenmiller returned with $14.8 million. Steve Cohen cut his stake by 89%, Renaissance Technologies by 64% and Israel Englander by 34%. These are positions as of June 30; the stock is 1.4% lower since.

In the twelve months to October 12, 2026, no Lilly insider bought shares on the market. Four executives sold $19.9 million, all through pre-arranged 10b5-1 plans: Patrik Jonsson ($7.64 million), Anat Hakim ($5.95 million, through a spouse’s account), Donald Zakrowski ($3.38 million) and Ilya Yuffa ($2.88 million).

The Endowment, which filed Form 4 reports while it owned more than 10% of the company, sold about 2.65 million shares for $2.65 billion between October 13, 2025 and May 6, 2026, none under a 10b5-1 plan. Its May 2026 report no longer marked it as a 10% owner. Since then it has filed notices to sell 1.83 million more shares, worth $2.02 billion at the time of the notices, between May 20 and October 7, 2026. The filings do not say why the foundation is selling.

Valuation, dividends and the long run

At $1,182.62, Lilly trades at 39.7 times its diluted earnings per share of the last twelve months ($29.79). Those earnings are after $4.54 billion of acquired research charges. The stock is 7.6% below its highest close, $1,280.34 on August 19, 2026, and 41.9% higher than a year earlier. The market value uses 891.4 million shares: the 941.4 million on the cover of the latest quarterly report, minus 50 million held in an employee benefit trust that Lilly does not count as outstanding for earnings per share.

Lilly paid $6.00 a share in dividends in 2025 and pays $1.73 a quarter in 2026, a 0.57% yield on the last twelve months of payments. Its 2021 annual report called that year “the 136th consecutive year” of dividends. The payout did not always rise: it stayed at $1.96 a year from 2009 to 2014.

The filings used here do not give the date Lilly first sold shares to the public, so the long view starts where the price history does, on June 1, 1972. Adjusted for four 2-for-1 splits, $1,000 invested that day would be worth about $292,000 from the share price alone, and about $1.33 million with dividends reinvested.

The figures above come from Lilly’s filings and the 13F, Form 4 and Form 144 filings listed below. They describe what happened; they are not a forecast and not investment advice. The Lilly page on this site has the same data updated daily, with a fair-price calculation explained in the methodology.