Lilly’s Worst Entry Points Were Its Most Hyped Approvals Mounjaro and Zepbound
Eli Lilly's two blockbuster drug approvals that transformed the company into a pharmaceutical giant turned out to be the worst moments to buy the stock. The entry point that crushed every other came during a moment most investors wanted nothing…
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Of five key Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY | LLY Price Prediction) stock entry points, the best by a wide margin was an oncology deal that closed during the financial crisis. The two tirzepatide approvals that built today’s Lilly were the worst. Every return below runs from a milestone’s closing price to the October 6, 2026, close of $1,157.49. Entry prices are split-adjusted (restated so that later share splits leave them comparable) and dividend-adjusted (reduced to credit the payouts a holder collected). Total return means price gain plus dividends, which is what a buy-and-hold investor actually experienced.
Because every return shares one endpoint, the ranking is fixed: a lower adjusted entry price is permanently the better entry, and only the size of each return moves. Here the order is perfectly sequential, with each later milestone proving a worse entry than the one before. (We studied a group of recent runners most investors discounted and pulled out the pattern in a free report here.)
ImClone Bought Cancer Drugs During a Panic
Lilly closed its ImClone Systems acquisition on November 24, 2008, as credit markets froze and investors had no appetite for pharmaceutical pipelines. The deal brought Erbitux and an antibody pipeline, giving Lilly a genuine oncology franchise. The broad market bottom was still months away, so this was buying into fear with no guarantee that the selling had ended.
- Adjusted entry price: $19.80
- $1,000 is now worth: $58,459
- Total return: 5,744.43%
Trulicity Bridged Old Lilly and New Lilly
FDA approval on September 18, 2014, gave Lilly its first major incretin success, a once-weekly diabetes injection that laid the commercial foundation for the later franchise.
- Adjusted entry price: $53.99
- $1,000 is now worth: $21,439
- Total return: 2,043.96%
Loxo Extended the Precision Oncology Thread
The Loxo Oncology acquisition closed February 15, 2019, adding targeted cancer drugs now sold as Retevmo and Jaypirca. Jaypirca revenue reached $192 million in Q2 2026, up 56% year over year.
- Adjusted entry price: $111.48
- $1,000 is now worth: $10,383
- Total return: 938.28%
Mounjaro and Zepbound Built Today’s Lilly and Paid the Least
Mounjaro (tirzepatide for diabetes) won approval May 13, 2022. Zepbound, the same molecule for obesity, followed on November 8, 2023. In Q2 2026, they generated $9.94 billion and $4.93 billion, respectively. Tirzepatide’s potential was obvious on both dates, and the market priced it in. Buying into that consensus returned the least.
- Mounjaro adjusted entry price: $281.76
- $1,000 is now worth: $4,108
- Total return: 310.8%
- Zepbound adjusted entry price: $606.54
- $1,000 is now worth: $1,908
- Total return: 90.84%
Trailing Returns Show Momentum Holding
Measured to a premarket quote of $1,163.26 on Wednesday:
- Year to date: 8.77%
- One year: 38.53%
- Five years: 421.94%
- Ten years: 1,557.06%
What You Paid Mattered More Than How Long You Held
Milestone headlines report a move that has already happened. Shares trade near 38x trailing and 24x forward earnings, with 2026 revenue guidance of $85.0 billion to $87.0 billion. Today’s price would be easier to justify if retatrutide, scheduled for a Q1 2027 filing, continues growth. Falling U.S. received prices squeezing the two-drug franchise driving the most revenue would be cause for caution.
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Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.
Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community.
Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.
Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions.
