Foundayo sales miss forecasts as Lilly says US demand more than tripled

INDIANAPOLIS: Eli Lilly reported Foundayo sales of $184 million for the third quarter, below the roughly $217 million that Wall Street had expected, according to a Chosun Biz report. Lilly said the gap reflects launch stock booked earlier in the year, not weak uptake of its oral GLP 1 obesity drug. Chief Financial Officer Lucas Montarce told Reuters that underlying U.S. demand more than tripled in the quarter. Prescription data from IQVIA show steady growth, but Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill still draws about three times as many weekly scripts.

Foundayo Sales Fall Short of Analyst Forecasts

Lilly published the figure in its third quarter earnings release on Oct. 29. The company's product revenue table lists Foundayo, the brand name for orforglipron, at $184 million worldwide for the three months to September. The same table gives $281 million for the first nine months of 2026, which leaves about $97 million booked before July. Chosun Biz reported that Wall Street had forecast about $217 million for the quarter, so Foundayo sales came in roughly $33 million short. Lilly did not give a quarterly forecast for the drug in its release. The company also did not split the total between the United States and the four other countries where, according to the report, the pill is already sold.

The oral drug is still a small part of a much larger business. Lilly said third quarter revenue rose 39% to $24.397 billion, and reported net income rose 16% to $6.451 billion. Mounjaro brought in $10.723 billion and Zepbound $5.352 billion, so the two injectable tirzepatide brands made up about $16.1 billion, or roughly two thirds of the total. Foundayo accounted for less than 1% of quarterly revenue. The release also said about $900 million of the quarter came from one time benefits, mainly Jardiance milestone payments and changes to rebate and discount estimates. Our earlier Lilly earnings analysis covers how volume growth outran price cuts. For Foundayo, the question in the Chosun Biz report was narrower: is the launch slowing, or is it simply hard to measure?

Lilly Points to Launch Channel Inventory

Lilly's explanation centers on stock shipped at launch. Montarce told Reuters, as cited in a Chosun Biz account, that about $30 million of second quarter Foundayo revenue was inventory sold into wholesalers, pharmacies and other distribution channels when the drug first reached the market. Building channel inventory is a normal part of a drug launch, because distributors need stock on shelves before the first prescriptions arrive. That stock counts as revenue when it ships, not when a patient fills a prescription. According to the report, analysts had trouble tracking the amount, and its inclusion lifted expectations built on the second quarter base. In Lilly's account, that made third quarter growth look weaker than the demand behind it.

Excluding that stock, Montarce said, U.S. demand rose from about $37 million in the second quarter to more than $120 million in the third.

Excluding that stock, Montarce said, U.S. demand rose from about $37 million in the second quarter to more than $120 million in the third. That is the basis for the company's statement that demand more than tripled. The figures are Lilly's own and do not appear in the published release, which lists one worldwide Foundayo number in each period. Readers cannot yet check how the company separated launch stock from patient demand, or how much revenue came from outside the United States. Chosun Biz framed the fourth quarter as the next test: whether revenue rises in step with demand now that the launch stocking is in the past. Until Lilly reports again, the inventory explanation remains a company account that outside data can only partly test.

IQVIA Prescriptions Climb Ninefold Since Launch

Prescription tracking data point in the same direction as Lilly's account. According to IQVIA figures cited by Chosun Biz, Foundayo logged 63,110 U.S. prescriptions in the week of Oct. 26 to 30. That is about nine times the level of the fourth week after launch, when weekly IQVIA prescriptions had just passed 7,000. The weekly high so far came in early October, at 64,268, so the latest week sat slightly below that record. IQVIA counts prescriptions, not revenue. Its figures describe how fast patients and prescribers are taking up the drug, while the dollar value depends on prices, rebates and stocking that only Lilly's own reports capture.

Lilly also gave figures on new patients. The company said the number of people starting Foundayo in the third quarter doubled from the second quarter. It also said about four in 10 U.S. patients who begin an oral obesity drug now choose its pill. Lilly did not publish the underlying patient counts in its earnings release, so neither claim can be checked against a public table. The table below sets out the main numbers in this story and where each one comes from. Figures attributed to Reuters, IQVIA or Jefferies reached Peptide Zone through the Chosun Biz report, and the original data files were not available for review.

Wegovy Pill Keeps Three Quarters of Oral GLP 1 Scripts

Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill remains the larger product. Investment bank Jefferies estimated that as of mid October, Novo held about 75% of U.S. oral GLP 1 prescriptions and Lilly about 25%, Chosun Biz reported. IQVIA counted about 183,000 weekly Wegovy pill prescriptions for Oct. 26 to 30, roughly three times the Foundayo total for the same week. Novo's tablet, an oral form of the peptide semaglutide, reached U.S. patients first, after an approval Peptide Zone covered as the first GLP 1 pill for chronic weight management in December 2025. Lilly's four in 10 figure refers to new starts, so it can sit alongside a lower share of total prescriptions, which include patients already on treatment.

The next checkpoints are regulatory and financial. Lilly expects an FDA decision in the fourth quarter on a type 2 diabetes indication for Foundayo, according to the report. Outside the United States, the drug is on sale in four countries, including the United Kingdom, and is under review in more than 40 others. The European Medicines Agency recommended EU marketing authorization in early October for adult weight management and type 2 diabetes, and the report said a European Commission decision could come around year end. Other oral GLP 1 candidates, such as AstraZeneca's elecoglipron, remain in trials. Fourth quarter Foundayo sales will show whether revenue now moves in step with prescriptions.

Conclusion

Foundayo sales of $184 million missed the forecast cited by Chosun Biz, but Lilly says launch stock distorted the comparison and that U.S. demand more than tripled. IQVIA data show weekly prescriptions about nine times higher than in the fourth week after launch, while the Wegovy pill still leads by about three to one. The demand split remains a company figure that the public release does not show. The fourth quarter report, an FDA diabetes decision and a possible EU approval are the next tests. This report is news and research coverage, not medical advice.