Eli Lilly Has a $100 Billion Revenue Story in the Making, 18% Upside Ahead

Vandita Jadeja

Mon, August 24, 2026 at 7:00 PM GMT+3 4 min read

Quick Read

LLY carries a BUY rating and $1,480 price target as $87 billion FY2026 guidance puts a $100 billion revenue milestone within reach.
NVO trades at $156 billion, which is one-seventh of LLY's market cap despite a comparable GLP-1 franchise, while MRK's $376 billion valuation reflects far slower growth.
Retatrutide's Q1 2027 BLA and orforglipron's global rollout power a bull-case target of $1,704, a 36% return from current levels.
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Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) is trading at $1,255.40, and management has guided fiscal 2026 revenue between $85 billion and $87 billion. That puts the $100 billion revenue mark within reach.

UrosPoteko / iStock

Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Lilly is $1,480.01, implying 17.89% upside over the next 12 months. Our recommendation is buy, with confidence level 90%.

LLY Price Target — 24/7 Wall St.

Why Lilly's Stock Looks Different in August 2026

Lilly is up 6.38% over the past week, 8.1% over the past month, and 77.98% over the past year, trading just under its 52-week high of $1,292.65.

Q2 2026 drove the rerating: revenue of $22.97 billion grew 47.67% year over year and beat consensus by 11.06%. EPS of $8.38 beat by 27.27%. Mounjaro delivered $9.94 billion (+91%) and Zepbound another $4.93 billion. In May, Lilly became the first drugmaker to hit a $1 trillion market value, and it now sits above that at $1.12 trillion.

LLY Earnings Explorer — 24/7 Wall St.

Why Bulls See a Breakout Ahead

The bull case rests on three engines. First, the incretin franchise generated nearly $14.87 billion in a single quarter, with Mounjaro international sales growing 172%.

Second, orforglipron (Foundeo), the approved oral GLP-1, is rolling out globally in 2027, with prescriber adoption jumping from approximately 8,000 to 36,000.

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Third, retatrutide, whose TRIUMPH-1 trial showed weight loss approaching bariatric surgery levels, is on track for a Q1 2027 BLA.

CEO David Ricks called "Lilly's future, after 150 years, has never been brighter." Our bull-case scenario points to $1,704.19, a 35.75% total return, consistent with 5 strong-buy and 17 buy consensus ratings.

LLY Analyst Ratings — 24/7 Wall St.

What Could Go Wrong

Realized U.S. prices fell roughly 9% ex-rebate, and Lilly took $2.78 billion in IPR&D charges from heavy M&A activity. Bulls counter that these charges reflect deliberate pipeline investment in Verve, Ataibeckley, and Kelonia, and that non-GAAP performance margin expanded to 54.8%.

Concentration is another risk: Mounjaro and Zepbound represent more than half of revenue, and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill launch will contest the oral category. Our bear case implies $1,222.27, a -2.64% return.

LLY Price Scenario — 24/7 Wall St.

How Lilly Compares to Novo Nordisk and Merck

Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) is the only true incretin peer, with Q1 2026 adjusted sales falling 4% at constant exchange rates as U.S. pricing eroded. Novo trades at a market cap of $156.4 billion, roughly one-seventh of Lilly's, despite a comparable GLP-1 franchise. That valuation gap reflects the market's premium for Lilly's growth trajectory.

Merck (NYSE:MRK) provides the large-cap pharma valuation floor. Merck guides FY2026 non-GAAP EPS of $5.04 to $5.16 on revenue of $65.8 billion to $67 billion, roughly comparable to Lilly with a fraction of the growth.

Merck's market cap of $376.4 billion versus Lilly's $1.12 trillion reflects the growth premium. Against that field, Lilly's forward P/E of 35 looks rich but defensible, and our 24/7 Wall St. price target of $1,480.01 reads as reasonable.

Eli Lilly Price Prediction 2026-2030

I'm sticking with the buy call and the 24/7 Wall St. price target of $1,480.01 at 90% confidence. The tipping factor is retatrutide readouts stacked against a raised revenue guide and margin expansion of nine percentage points.

I'd be a buyer if the Q1 2027 retatrutide BLA lands on schedule and Foundayo international launches track UAE uptake. I would stay on the sidelines if U.S. price erosion accelerates past management's guided offset.

Here is where our model projects Lilly could trade, assuming current trajectories hold.

These projections assume Lilly continues executing on its incretin franchise and pipeline. Meaningful upside or downside could result from retatrutide's regulatory outcome, orforglipron's international ramp, and U.S. GLP-1 pricing policy.