New York, Feb 27, 2026, 12:07 PM EST — Regular session
- Eli Lilly climbed roughly 0.8% in late morning action, recovering after slipping 0.7% on Thursday.
- Full trial data on the oral diabetes and weight-loss drug orforglipron revealed more patients dropped out compared to Novo’s oral semaglutide.
- Traders are watching for cues on when U.S. regulators might act on obesity drugs—and keeping tabs on the upcoming batch of late-stage results.
Shares of Eli Lilly and Company ticked higher Friday, up 0.8% to $1,030.31, snapping back a bit after two days in the red. Investors sifted through the full data from a head-to-head trial of its oral GLP-1 candidate, orforglipron. The stock had settled at $1,022.02 on Thursday.
The specifics take on new weight, since Lilly’s future growth depends on accelerating access outside its current lineup of injectable obesity and diabetes medications. Pills are simpler: shipping, storage, dosing — all easier. That shift could redraw the market’s boundaries, and ratchet up pressure around price negotiations and insurance hurdles.
Tolerability, though, is often the deciding factor. Investors, burned before, know by now that a weight-loss figure on a slide deck rarely matches what patients actually manage outside the clinic.
Thursday’s full data revealed orforglipron triggered more side effects and higher dropout rates compared to Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide during a diabetes trial. The findings introduce a fresh complication to a race previously focused almost entirely on efficacy.
Lilly’s orforglipron outperformed oral semaglutide on both blood sugar and weight loss in the ACHIEVE-3 trial, which tracked 1,698 adults with type 2 diabetes on metformin for 52 weeks. “The differences were clinically meaningful,” said Dr. Julio Rosenstock, who led the study. Kenneth Custer, an executive at Lilly, added the company aims to get this treatment to patients “as quickly as possible.” PR Newswire
The numbers spell out the compromise: orforglipron saw discontinuation rates from adverse events at 8.7% to 9.7%, compared with oral semaglutide’s 4.5% to 4.9%, the published data show.
GLP-1 drugs act like a gut hormone, tamping down appetite and managing blood sugar. In diabetes studies, A1C—a three-month average of blood glucose—remains the key metric. Insurers scrutinize A1C just as much as weight loss when weighing coverage decisions.
The risk is clear enough: when dropout rates climb, real-world outcomes take a hit. Dosing gets trickier, and competitors gain leverage at the bargaining table with insurers. On top of that, regulators are more likely to tighten up labeling or demand more post-marketing follow-up if discontinuations start piling up.
Traders now eye Friday’s slight bounce to see if it sticks through the close, while focus quickly turns to the next calendar milestone: U.S. decision-making on orforglipron for obesity, still slated for the second quarter. Another flashpoint comes June 5–8 at the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.
