Foundayo clocked $98 million in sales in Q2, the first quarter it was available, compared to Novo’s $355 million for the same sales period.
After entering the obesity market and soundly stealing market share from rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, Eli Lilly isn’t used to being behind. But Foundayo, the Indiana pharma’s new obesity pill, is a different beast.
After receiving FDA approval on April 1, Lilly has seen slow uptake as it introduces patients and caregivers to a completely new product. Novo, on the other hand, had simply captured its successful injectable GLP-1 in a pill.
“We’re making pretty meaningful progress on the Foundayo performance and building out the brand,” said Ilya Yuffa, president of Lilly USA and global customer capabilities, on the company’s second quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Foundayo clocked $98 million in sales in Q2, the first quarter it was available, compared to Novo’s $355 million for the Wegovy pill for its initial sales period. Approved in December 2025, the Wegovy pill rose to $496 million for the second quarter, Novo reported Tuesday afternoon. Foundayo narrowly missed consensus estimates, but analysts weren’t surprised by the weakness.
Lilly has focused on building brand awareness in Foundayo, educating doctors on the drug’s profile, offering access and affordability for patients, and reaching consumers directly, Yuffa explained.
The drug is undoubtedly growing, he insisted. Volume has doubled from just a month ago and nearly one in four patients are choosing Foundayo for initial starts.
“We’re starting to see an inflection point on Foundayo now,” Yuffa said.
But that’s just in the U.S. Analysts pointed to Foundayo’s performance elsewhere as a particular strong point. “Although Foundayo U.S. disappointed, Foundayo ex-U.S. (solely sales in UAE), is an indicator of Foundayo’s ex-U.S. potential,” Leerink Partners’ Senior Research Analyst David Risinger said.
The therapy brought in $31 million in the UAE in the second quarter, “which bodes well for Foundayo’s global potential,” according to Leerink.
Without the ex-U.S. sales for Foundayo, RBC Capital Markets wondered if Lilly’s overall results would have been so strong. “Foundayo’s U.S. performance remains uncertain,” the firm wrote.
Foundayo launched with about 8,000 subscribers but has now grown that to 36,000, RBC noted.
A ‘blowout’ performance
Otherwise, Leerink dubbed Lilly’s second quarter performance a “blowout.” The company notched $23 billion in revenue and raised its outlook to a range of $85 to $87 billion, as compared to $82 to $85 billion previously projected.
Lilly executed a number of transactions in the second quarter, including buying Orna Therapeutics, Ajax Therapeutics, Centessa Pharmaceuticals and Kelonia Therapeutics. Lilly has also since picked up psychedelics biotech AtaiBeckley, diving deeper into neuroscience.
Analysts asked for insight into Lilly’s revived interest in psychiatry during the call, as well as a triple-acquisition in vaccines from earlier in the year. Jacob Van Naarden, president of Lilly Oncology and head of corporate business development, said the company is are simply seeking out unmet needs.
“What these two areas have in common is just the immense unmet need that still remains, and that really is the throughline of all of the work that we do, both internally and through business development,” he said. “It’s not actually that different, frankly, than the many other deals that we’ve done year to date.”
Van Naarden, as well as CEO David Ricks, hinted on the call that more deals could be in the future but were fairly mum on specifics.
“Whether we continue to build more around infectious diseases and psychiatry specifically … I don’t want to forward-look too much on that because we’ll be opportunistic based on what we see that’s available for acquisition and partnering,” Van Naarden said.
