---
title: "Lilly raises guidance to $92 billion and hits a record close, while Novo Nordisk bets November on CagriSema"
description: "Lilly just priced its clinical lead at 31 times earnings while Novo Nordisk trades at 12x, and Novo's November congress calendar is the last scheduled chance to argue back before retatrutide's FDA filing closes the record."
publisher: "The Inference"
section: "Health"
published: 2026-10-31T16:17:41.078Z
modified: 2026-10-31T16:17:41.078Z
canonical: https://theinference.org/article/lilly-raises-guidance-to-92-billion-and-hits-a-record-close-while-novo-nordisk-bets-november-on-cagrisema
language: en
keywords: "Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, GLP-1, Obesity, Guidance, Drug Trials"
---

# Lilly raises guidance to $92 billion and hits a record close, while Novo Nordisk bets November on CagriSema

> Lilly just priced its clinical lead at 31 times earnings while Novo Nordisk trades at 12x, and Novo's November congress calendar is the last scheduled chance to argue back before retatrutide's FDA filing closes the record.

## Two drugmakers, one verdict scheduled for November

[Eli Lilly](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/eli-lilly) closed at a record $1,373.70 on October 29, up 6.63%, after raising its 2026 revenue forecast to $91–92 billion, [roughly $10 billion above the range it set in February](https://www.biospace.com/business/lillys-guidance-has-jumped-by-10b-as-glp-1-sales-keep-blowing-past-expectations) [4]. [Novo Nordisk](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/novo-nordisk), the Danish rival it dethroned in obesity medicine, spent the same week [buying back its own stock](https://www.ad-hoc-news.de/boerse/news/unternehmensnachrichten/novo-nordisk-s-buyback-a-pediatric-insulin-approval-and-the-retatrutide-question-all-point-to/70437667): DKK 11.19 billion of a DKK 15 billion program completed through October 23 [5]. The two moves answer different questions. Lilly's raise answers whether demand is real. Novo's buyback answers nothing about demand at all.

## The money has already moved

Lilly's [third-quarter revenue rose 39% to $24.4 billion](https://finance.yahoo.com/healthcare/articles/eli-lilly-company-lly-said-231732107.html), with Mounjaro and Zepbound clearing $16 billion combined [2]. The catch sits in the footnotes: about $2 billion of 2026 revenue is one-time milestones and rebate adjustments that will not recur, which makes the Street's 2027 estimate near $103 billion a demand for about 15% growth on a cleaner base [2][4]. The climb to get here was not a step, it was a staircase.

*Chart: **Lilly's revenue has climbed every quarter for more than two years** Line chart of Eli Lilly quarterly revenue from Q2 2024 ($11.3B) to Q3 2026 ($24.4B), showing nine consecutive quarters of growth.*

*Quarterly revenue in USD billions, from Eli Lilly's SEC filings. Lilly has grown every quarter for more than two years. [7]*

*Chart: **Novo's revenue went sideways while Lilly's more than doubled** Line chart comparing Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk quarterly revenue from Q2 2024 to Q2 2026: Lilly rises from $11.3B to $24.4B while Novo stays between $9.8B and $14.9B and its latest quarter fell 0.8% year over year.*

*Quarterly revenue in USD billions, from each company's SEC filings; Novo's latest reported quarter was down 0.8% year over year while Lilly's rose 39%. [7][8]*

## The clinical bar Novo must clear

On October 28, Lilly reported that [retatrutide cut blood sugar by 2.2% versus 1.8% for Ozempic, and produced up to 20.9% weight loss against 9.4%, in a phase 3 head-to-head](https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/eli-lillys-retatrutide-tops-ozempic-phase-3-diabetes-showdown) across nearly 1,300 patients [3]. Lilly plans to file for FDA approval in the first quarter of 2027, so these are the last public data before the dossier closes [3].

Novo's reply comes on a calendar it set itself: twelve semaglutide and efruxifermin abstracts at The Liver Meeting, November 5–9 in Denver, then 26 abstracts at ObesityWeek, November 14–17, including CagriSema and [the Wegovy tablet](https://theinference.org/article/novo-s-wegovy-pill-inherits-a-32-billion-franchise-as-a-judge-declines-to-block-lilly-s-ads) [5].

*Chart: **Twice the weight loss, three times the dropouts** Bars comparing weight loss at 80 weeks: 20.9% on retatrutide 12 mg, 19.5% on retatrutide 9 mg, 9.4% on Ozempic 2 mg; discontinuations for adverse events were 7.9% on the top retatrutide dose versus 2.7% on Ozempic.*

*Weight loss at 80 weeks in Lilly's phase 3 head-to-head trial; on the top dose, 7.9% discontinued for adverse events versus 2.7% on Ozempic. [3]*

## The lead has a price, and so does the discount

Retatrutide's edge is not free. On the top dose, 7.9% of patients quit over side effects versus 2.7% on Ozempic, with diarrhea the widest gap [3].

The bull case for Novo is a different arithmetic: the stock has [fallen more than 60% cumulatively](https://nai500.com/blog/2026/10/novo-nordisk-shares-fall-over-60-can-its-2030-targets-help-drive-a-recovery/) and [trades at about 12x forward earnings against roughly 31x for Lilly](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/eli-lilly-stock-rose-nearly-130236809.html) on the same drug class [4][6]. One camp reads the efficacy gap as permanent. The other notes the market itself is widening: more than 500,000 fills through Medicare's Bridge program since July, and about 80% of those patients were new to incretin therapy, demand that lifts both houses [1][2].

## What decides it

Novo's quarterly report and the two November congresses either support the comeback or bury it. The tell is whether Novo's own figures show the sector's demand reaching its business, or whether Lilly's tailwind stays a competitor's story. [J.P. Morgan](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/jpmorgan-chase) still holds at DKK 275, a wait, not a verdict [5]. When the abstracts land, count the endpoints, not the slide count.

## Takeaway

Lilly raised 2026 guidance to $91 to $92 billion and closed at a record $1,373.70 after nine straight quarters of growth, while Novo Nordisk, down more than 60% and trading at 12x versus Lilly's 31x, pins its comeback on November's Liver Meeting and ObesityWeek abstracts and its own quarterly report before retatrutide's first-quarter 2027 FDA filing closes the record.

## Sources

1. [BioSpace, Lilly's guidance has jumped by $10B as GLP-1 sales keep blowing past expectations, 30 October 2026](https://www.biospace.com/business/lillys-guidance-has-jumped-by-10b-as-glp-1-sales-keep-blowing-past-expectations)
2. [MarketBeat via Yahoo Finance, What Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) Said on Its Q3 Earnings Call, 30 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/healthcare/articles/eli-lilly-company-lly-said-231732107.html)
3. [Fierce Biotech, Eli Lilly's retatrutide bests Ozempic on blood sugar, weight loss in phase 3 diabetes showdown, 30 October 2026](https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/eli-lillys-retatrutide-tops-ozempic-phase-3-diabetes-showdown)
4. [TIKR via Yahoo Finance, Eli Lilly Stock Rose Nearly 7% to a Record as It Lifted Its 2026 Sales Forecast, 30 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/eli-lilly-stock-rose-nearly-130236809.html)
5. [Ad-hoc-news, Novo Nordisk's Buyback, a Pediatric Insulin Approval and the Retatrutide Question All Point to November, 31 October 2026](https://www.ad-hoc-news.de/boerse/news/unternehmensnachrichten/novo-nordisk-s-buyback-a-pediatric-insulin-approval-and-the-retatrutide-question-all-point-to/70437667)
6. [Nai500, Novo Nordisk Shares Fall Over 60%, Can Its 2030 Targets Help Drive a Recovery?, 30 October 2026](https://nai500.com/blog/2026/10/novo-nordisk-shares-fall-over-60-can-its-2030-targets-help-drive-a-recovery/)
7. [Eli Lilly, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 31 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000059478)
8. [Novo Nordisk, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 31 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000353278)


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Lilly raises guidance to $92 billion and hits a record close, while Novo Nordisk bets November on CagriSema — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/lilly-raises-guidance-to-92-billion-and-hits-a-record-close-while-novo-nordisk-bets-november-on-cagrisema