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Key Points
- Eli Lilly is opening up a new way for employers to cover their weight-loss drugs.
- With half or more of employees not having coverage for obesity medications, Employer Connect could unlock significant demand for LLY.
- Meanwhile, the company's oral GLP-1 just beat out Novo's in a head-to-head type 2 diabetes duel.
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The world’s most valuable pharmaceutical stock, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY), has continued to assert its dominance in the weight-loss and diabetes drug market in 2026.
The company’s most recent earnings report forecast robust 25% growth for the year, well above expectations. While this would be much slower than the 45% growth Lilly generated in 2025, it would still mark the company’s third-highest annual growth rate in its history. The firm’s current GLP-1 franchises will continue to see strong sales increases, but growth can’t remain in sky-high territory forever.
At the same time, Lilly’s top competitor, Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO), is forecasting its worst revenue growth rate in years. In 2026, Novo expects sales to fall by between 5% and 13%. When measured in U.S. dollars, the company hasn’t experienced a revenue drop of more than 5% since 2014. Measured in Danish Kroner, this statement holds true through 1998.
This difference provides a snapshot into Lilly’s far superior position, particularly when it comes to injectable GLP-1s that are currently available.
However, the healthcare company continues to make moves to bolster its position further. Expanding drug access and winning the oral GLP-1 battle are two key levers the firm is working to pull.
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Employer Connect: Lilly’s Bid to Crack the Huge Employer Coverage Gap
One of Lilly’s most significant recent announcements is the launch of its Employer Connect platform. The point of this program is to fill the gap in employer-sponsored obesity care. Lilly notes that approximately half of the people on employer-sponsored plans don’t receive coverage for obesity. One survey found that just 20% of companies with over 200 workers cover weight loss drugs, with only 43% of those with 5,000 employees or more doing so.
This is a significant untapped opportunity for Lilly’s business. If these individuals' employers won’t pay for coverage, then they have to pay out of pocket to get the company’s drugs. Through LillyDirect, the firm’s direct-to-consumer platform, Zepbound costs between $299 and $449 per month. Considering this cost, Lilly is likely losing a significant number of patients who would otherwise use its drugs if their employers covered them.
To help fix this problem, Lilly is offering Zepbound to employers at a discounted price of $449, of which employees would only pay a small fraction. This is less than half of the drug’s list price of over $1,000. The company is also bypassing traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) with Employer Connect. PBMs act as a middleman between drug companies and insurers and can have opaque pricing agreements. The industry is also highly concentrated, giving them significant negotiating leverage.
Instead, through Employer Connect, companies can choose from over 15 independent program administrators, picking the best one to suit their needs. Lilly wants these 15 administrators to compete against one another based on the specific services they offer.
Overall, if employers adopt the program, Lilly could inject significant new Zepbound sales into its top line. However, a meaningful contribution may not come until 2027 as employers take their time to review this new option.
On the other hand, if employers that already cover Zepbound move to Employer Connect, Lilly may take a pricing hit. However, with such a large gap in coverage, Lilly is willing to accept this, given the huge volume increase that Employer Connect could lead to.
Lilly Scores Win in Smaller Oral Type 2 Diabetes Market
Lilly also released some positive news regarding its developmental oral GLP-1, orforglipron. The company studied the drug in a head-to-head trial with Novo’s already approved oral GLP-1, oral semaglutide. Notably, the study found that orforglipron resulted in superior blood sugar reduction and weight loss for patients with type 2 diabetes. For the type 2 diabetes indication, oral semaglutide has been on the market since 2019, under the name Rybelsus.
A1C, a key blood sugar marker, fell by 2.2% for orforglipron patients, compared to 1.4% for oral semaglutide patients. Furthermore, orforglipron patients lost 9.2% of their weight, compared to just 5.3% for oral semaglutide patients.
This is a positive sign as Lilly looks to get orforglipron approved as an oral type 2 diabetes medicine. Still, the oral type 2 diabetes market is relatively small in the grand scheme of the GLP-1s. Novo’s Rybelsus sales were approximately $3.5 billion in 2025. This is nearly one-tenth of the approximately $32.5 billion in combined Ozempic and Wegovy sales Novo saw in 2025. Lilly is also working to get orforglipron as an oral obesity medication, which could be a much larger market.
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LLY Keeps Opening New Doors to Drive Potential Growth
Overall, Lilly continues to find ways to build new potential customer bases through both expanding drug access and researching new products. While Lilly has already grown into a giant company, its demonstrated success and penchant for innovation make it a hard stock to bet against.
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