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Eli Lilly’s slip does not mean the weight loss drug craze is over

The misses are largely down to inventory issues, rather than weaker demand

Eli Lilly’s chunky valuation means it has little room for error. The shares have more than tripled since the start of 2022 to make the company the world’s most valuable drugmaker. Thanks to the frenzy for its weight-loss drugs, it had at its peak last month a market capitalisation of over $860bn. Its price to forward earnings multiple of over 50 times also puts it on a hefty premium to other pharma groups. Pfizer trades on just 11 times.

With expectations so high, it would not take much bad news for Eli Lilly’s blistering run to go into reverse.

That appears to be what happened on Wednesday. The stock tumbled by as much as 11 per cent in pre-market trading after Eli Lilly reported quarterly sales for its key GLP-1 drugs — Mounjaro and Zepbound — that missed analysts’ estimates. After raising its guidance twice this year, Eli Lilly now expects full year sales to top out at $46bn, compared with its previous guidance of $46.6bn.

Shares recovered slightly to trade 9 per cent lower. Even so, the selling looks overdone. The latest results are not a wash out. Sales of Mounjaro, a diabetes treatment that some doctors prescribe off-label as a weight loss drug, came in at $3.11bn during the quarter. While that missed analyst expectations for $3.6bn, it is still more than double the $1.4bn the drug pulled in during the year ago period. Zepbound, a weight-loss injection that was only approved last year, generated $1.26bn in sales, below the $1.69bn predicted. 

The misses are largely down to inventory issues, rather than weaker demand. Until recently, Eli Lilly had struggled to produce enough Mounjaro and Zepbound to meet demand. A ramp-up in manufacturing capacity finally allowed it to fill back-orders and improve wholesaler supplies during the second quarter. During the third quarter, wholesalers chose to sell down existing inventory rather than buy more.

There is a good reason for this. Both Mounjaro and Zepbound are available in six different dosages. Efficient management of inventories means wholesalers are waiting to see which of the dosages are more popular before restocking. A better gauge of demand would be the number of prescriptions for the drugs. These rose 25 per cent quarter on quarter. 

With more than 40 per cent of US adults considered obese, demand for weight loss drugs will stay robust. One estimate reckons the market for GLP-1 drugs could be worth as much as $150bn by 2031. The long-term outlook for Eli Lilly’s obesity business remains intact — especially if the drugs end up providing other health benefits.

One does not need to subscribe to hyperbolic Tory rhetoric to recognise that this Budget heralded a major shift

Farewell then Singapore-on-Thames. In truth, we never really knew you. And welcome instead to Britain-sur-mer. The Conservatives took us there by accident; with Labour it appears to be by design. The defining significance of Rachel Reeves’ first Budget — the most significant for many years — is that Britain’s political path is towards proximity with the higher taxing nations of Europe.

One does not need to subscribe to hyperbolic Tory rhetoric about returning to the 1970s to recognise that this Budget heralded a major shift. It marks the surrender, for now, of the notion of low-tax, globally competitive Britain, and a bet on state investment-led growth. Reeves may have signalled that this was “one and done” in terms of future tax rises, but this one comes on top of an already elevated tax burden.

The numbers are jaw-dropping. The extra £40bn raised will take the tax burden to 38 per cent by the end of the decade, the highest on record. The size of the state is forecast to settle at 44 per cent of GDP. The state — and hence the taxpayer — is not simply paying for better public services. It is shouldering the burden of powering higher growth too.

There was never any doubt about the pain. Reeves started in a bad place, with wrecked public finances, low growth and public services starved of funds. The only hope was that after she had mapped out her higher tax, spend and borrowing future, it would be possible to see a route to better times.

Labour has two overarching missions both for this Budget and in general; to restore the crumbling fabric of Britain and to alter the country’s economic course towards a higher growth future. It is possible to see a pathway towards the first, though details of the promised reform which must accompany higher spending remain sketchy.

On growth, however, the route is less certain. While it is hard to quarrel with most of the promised new investment, it is not immediately obvious how this Budget alters the economic trajectory of the country. Where are the productivity gains? What is the new compelling argument that differentiates Britain from other advanced nations? 

All forecasts come with health warnings, but the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the UK’s growth prospects for the next five years offers little cheer. At the end of this parliament the OBR expects Britain to be stumbling along with growth well below 2 per cent. Perhaps even more troubling is that it argues that the Budget may crowd out business investment.

Reeves will argue otherwise, stressing that she always said the reward for “fixing the foundations” comes over 10 years rather than five and that business investment will follow. That is the fundamental bet — for her and the country.

Until that pays off, however, and without ever stating it publicly, Labour is taking Britain to a different tax settlement. This is a place where the tax burden remains significantly higher and where those who demand better services will have to pay more for them. Her front-loaded spending plans give Reeves little choice other than to keep taxes high unless the economy transforms within two years. Many will argue that this was always necessary and that the body politic has for too long deluded itself with stop-start spending, but that was not Labour’s pitch to the voters.

For now Reeves has attempted to avoid making this too obvious to the “working people” Labour seeks to serve. Her priority was to protect them from noticeably bearing the burden. Huge tax rises arrived as costs to business while the only surprise was her decision not to further extend the Tory freeze on income tax thresholds. Likewise, continuing to freeze fuel duty may be politically prudent at a time of high energy costs but it sits oddly with the mantra of being a green government.

It could have been worse. The chancellor was deft enough to listen to some of the lobbying around the dangers of particular measures. And yet over time those taxes will also trickle through to the workers she had promised to protect, be it in lower pay or fewer new jobs.

The money raised by all this will be devoted to the first core mission. The state of public services demands more both in day-to-day and capital spending. No one who has waited for an ambulance, an operation, a police officer or a social care bed could be in any doubt about the need to restore the fabric of public provision. Even so, the nation will wait to see how the huge increase in health spending in particular will be used in a way that suggests a more sustainable future for the NHS.

On capital investment, funded by extra borrowing of around £28bn a year, Reeves met many expectations with money for house building, for rail lines and for crumbling schools.

If voters feel public services are improving, and the economy shows signs of growth, the tax gamble will have worked. The political danger for Labour is that, if it ducks that wider debate on how to fund services, it will eventually find itself ousted as voters conclude that enough repair work has been done and they would now like to keep more of their money.

The bigger test though will be whether Labour can spend this money wisely. So far there has been too little detail to instil confidence that current tax levels are only temporary. As with the growth plan, too much remains TBC.

Reeves had few choices and none of them were good. The change Labour was elected to deliver required something like this Budget. She has delivered the Big Bang needed and will argue that reform and growth will ease that upward tax pressure. Hopefully, she will be vindicated. But Labour has decisively shifted the needle on Britain’s tax burden. One can debate the pros and cons, but the fact cannot be denied.

As we wrapped up our generative AI takeover list and our fifth annual most promising startups list, I got to thinking: how many of the companies will still be independent a year from now?

Already, this year has seen a flurry of acquisitions and quasi-acquisitions as startups look for a safe haven in the arms of larger tech companies. And there are likely more such deals to come—bankers tell me that many potential acquirers and targets are waiting for the results of next week’s presidential elections to suss out what the antitrust regulatory environment might look like before beginning deal talks.

When we think about what AI deals might make the most sense for next year, there are a couple likely takeover candidates that we’ve written at length about, such as embattled AI wearable-device maker Humane and Stability AI, which now develops AI image and video technology aimed at Hollywood. But here are theoretical pairings you might not have thought about:

Cohere + SAP, Oracle, Salesforce or Snowflake: Out of the major closed-source model developers, Cohere has so far trailed behind rivals when it comes to generating revenue. A few months before it received an investment that valued it at a whopping $5.5 billion, the Canadian model developer was making just $35 million in annualized revenue, compared to the $3.4 billion in ARR OpenAI was making just a few months later (and that figure is now around $4 billion). With rising competition, it might make more sense for Cohere to sell.

One possible buyer would be SAP, which has already invested in Cohere and has yet to make a major AI acquisition. As a German company, SAP may also be interested in Cohere’s recent work with multilingual models. Another option is Oracle, which has also invested in Cohere and uses the startup’s models to power AI features in its HR software.

While Cohere’s general-purpose large language models have fallen behind in evaluations such as the Lmsys leaderboard, some developers tell me they’re impressed by the retrieval augmented generation features Cohere offers, which can help to reduce bad results from LLMs by providing the models with access to data whose accuracy has been vetted. (More on RAG here.)

Those capabilities could also be helpful for two other potential acquirers, Salesforce and Snowflake, that want to help businesses use their private sales or enterprise data in conjunction with LLMs. Snowflake has already discussed partnerships with Cohere, as I’ve previously reported.

Mistral + Apple, Microsoft or Amazon: My colleague Kalley has written about the challenges Mistral faces in making money from open-source models. The list of companies that could acquire the Paris-based startup is short, given its $6 billion valuation. It could make sense for Apple to buy Mistral, given that the iPhone maker has been slow to develop its own conversational AI and is relying on outside providers, starting with OpenAI, to handle complex tasks that its own AI cannot. Mistral has also recently doubled down on small, lightweight models that can run on devices, which could make it especially interesting for applications on the iPhone or Macbook.

Another option is Microsoft, which yesterday continued its pattern of diversifying from OpenAI by incorporating models from the ChatGPT maker’s rivals into its GitHub Copilot coding assistant. Microsoft has clearly wanted to move closer to Mistral, as it invested $16 million in the startup earlier this year. Perhaps Mistral’s AI talent could help Microsoft in developing its MAI-1 model, which we haven’t heard much about since we first reported on it in May. (To be fair, a spokesperson for Microsoft said Mistral isn’t a candidate for acquisition.)

Mistral’s AI talent could also be attractive for Amazon, which is similarly developing its own LLM, Olympus, but whose past attempts at building its own conversational AI haven’t gone so well. For now, though, Amazon is relying in part on Anthropic’s technology to power AI products and features, so an Anthropic-Amazon mega-deal is not out of the question either, as my colleagues have previously covered. Amazon is, of course, a big investor in Anthropic.

Modular + Advanced Micro Devices: One of Nvidia’s biggest advantages is Cuda, its software for writing machine-learning apps that only works with its own chips. Cuda isn’t particularly easy to use, but it’s so ubiquitous that most developers working with AI chips have gotten used to its quirks and are essentially locked into using the software with Nvidia graphics processing units. The startup Modular, which was last valued at $600 million, is working to change that by developing a Cuda alternative that’s simpler to use and works with non-Nvidia hardware as well. That could be the secret weapon to help chipmaker AMD catch up with Nvidia, as it could theoretically make AMD chips easier for developers to use.

First, though, we’ll have to see how well that software works. CEO Chris Lattner recently told my colleague Akash that the product is set to launch sometime this fall.

Perplexity + Meta: Perplexity is no stranger to acquisition offers: as my colleague Kevin reported in this profile of its CEO from Friday, the search engine startup has received acquisition interest from companies including Microsoft, X, OpenAI and Notion. Though it seems like none of those deal talks have panned out (for now), another natural partner for the startup could be Meta, which my colleague Kalley reported this week is developing its own AI search engine to lessen its reliance on Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

Perplexity could accelerate that process for Meta by providing the company with its proprietary search engine bot that crawls and indexes websites or the algorithms it uses to rank and write out search results. Meta would first need to figure out how much of Perplexity’s results come from proprietary technology versus relying on back-end tech from other parties. And Meta is more likely to be more interested in a deal if its leaders believe Perplexity’s app will become the next big thing with consumers. Only that would justify paying anywhere near the $8 billion price that Perplexity wants from investors in an upcoming funding round.

Clay or 11x + Salesforce: If Clay and 11x sound familiar, it’s probably because both early-stage startups landed on our most recent promising startups list for helping salespeople automate the process of finding and reaching out to prospective customers. Though Salesforce is already developing AI software for salespeople, it has stopped short of saying it wants to replace salespeople by fully automating their roles. If it ever decides to move in that direction, these startups could be of interest. They have had early success in getting other software companies to pay for tech that replaces junior salespeople. (Check out Jon and Aaron’s piece from yesterday on the boom in AI sales tech startups.) Plus, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff loves acquisitions more than almost any CEO we know!

Hugging Face + Meta: One of Meta’s biggest challenges in AI is getting big businesses to use its Llama open-source models. One way to solve that problem is to buy a popular community of open-source developers through an acquisition of Hugging Face, which was last valued at $4.5 billion.

Today, Meta lets Hugging Face host its Llama models for developers to download, and Hugging Face gives Meta some basic stats, like the number of times Llama models are downloaded and the geographic distribution of users, according to a person familiar with their relationship. However, Meta might benefit from Hugging Face’s data on non-Meta models and datasets, like which model types, architectures, datasets, libraries and modalities are trending more broadly in the open-source developer community. Meta could then use that data to improve its Llama models and understand how developers are using conversational AI.

Plus, an acquisition would extend the halo effect Meta has received from positioning itself as a supporter of the open-source AI community. One potential complication to this idea: Hugging Face on Monday publicly supported a new definition for open-source AI that wouldn’t include Llama because Meta requires apps with more than 700 million monthly active users to request a special license to use Llama models.

Cognition + Microsoft: One of the most successful early uses of generative AI has been generating code, which has consequently triggered VCs to back coding assistant startups. That’s also made the market increasingly competitive and crowded.

One of the startups worth paying attention to is Cognition, whose buzzy Devin coding assistant helped it raise multiple funding rounds in quick succession earlier this year, reaching a $2 billion valuation just six months after it was founded. Since then, though, I haven’t heard a ton about the startup, and it still has yet to make Devin widely available to users. It might make sense for Microsoft to acquire Cognition and use its tech—which helps Devin search the web, reference outside files and run autonomously to build websites and products without much prompting from the user—to improve GitHub Copilot, Microsoft’s AI coding assistant. Some developers say GitHub Copilot is less sophisticated than alternative coding assistants such as Cursor or even OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which works as a bona fide coding assistant too. And now, OpenAI is developing an even more sophisticated coding assistant.

About 400 companies and individuals in China, India, Turkey and other countries are added to sanctions list

The US has blacklisted roughly 400 companies and individuals from China, India and other countries, in the latest effort to limit Russia’s ability to obtain critical materials needed to continue its war in Ukraine.

In the latest wave of designations on Wednesday, the US Treasury added more than 270 individuals and companies to its sanctions list, while the Department of State listed another 120.

Sanctioned entities have their assets blocked and US entities are generally prohibited from dealing with them. People in third countries who assist them could also be at risk of being sanctioned themselves.

Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury, said: “We are unyielding in our resolve to diminish and degrade Russia’s ability to equip its war machine and stop those seeking to aid their efforts through circumvention or evasion of our sanctions and export controls.”

Most listings relate to the import of military equipment and components: Mirex, a Turkish company, was listed for having “led efforts to locally assemble and manufacture equipment for Russian defence companies”.

AM Logistics, a Russian company, was listed for obtaining nitrocellulose abroad, a chemical compound used in explosives, including from Turkey.

A small number of the designations directly relate to the import of US-made goods. According to its listing, Ace Electronic, a Chinese company, exported American-made radio frequency transceivers to Russia that have been subsequently found in Orlan-10 drones.

New Way, a Turkish company, was listed for working with Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU to organise “shipments of US-origin microelectronics and production and testing equipment to Russia”.

The state department listings include subsidiaries of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear group, as part of its increased focus on the Russian nuclear weapons complex and defence sector. It also targeted Belarusian entities supporting the Russian defence sector.

One of the individuals added to the list is Timur Badr, a Dubai-based Russian national the Financial Times revealed to have been supplying the Russian aerospace industry with essential components for civilian and military end users. One of his companies was shipping high-end avionics components from Dubai in passenger luggage.

The Treasury also sanctioned financial facilitators, describing them as “key nodes in sanctions evasion ecosystems”. Washington said cracking down on these services “can act as force multipliers by rippling disruptive effects through multiple sanctions evasion networks simultaneously”.

Two Swiss nationals, Andres Baumgartner, 63, and Fabio Libero Delco, 57, were added to the sanctions list for having “provided trust and corporation formation services to many Russian clients, including sanctioned Russian individuals”.

Investors are understandably concerned despite the carmaker’s mooted job cuts and plant closures

Can Volkswagen cost-cut its way out of a crisis? The automaker plans to shut several German plants and axe tens of thousands of jobs. At this point, though, the question is no longer whether VW needs to restructure but whether the axe will be sharp enough to excise its troubles.

The German group is facing a car crash of problems, as a series of profit warnings and, more recently, a 64 per cent decline in third-quarter earnings exemplifies.

China is a key issue as domestic carmakers churn out cheaper and better vehicles. VW’s deliveries in the region fell by 10 per cent in the first nine months of the year. The contribution from its joint ventures in China this year will be some €1.6bn of “proportionate operating income”, thinks VW, around half the amount in 2022. 

Competition from Chinese carmakers — whether in China or abroad — is structural and will not be easily reversed. EU tariffs on Chinese EVs will slow, rather than halt, penetration.

That, plus an arguably cyclical slowdown in European vehicle sales — which this year are expected to be 14mn across the market compared to 16mn pre-pandemic — is forcing VW to grapple with its unsustainably high cost base. 

Much of the problem lies with the group’s core VW brand. This struggles to make much of a margin even in the good times. In the third quarter, it fell to 1.8 per cent of sales. That’s well below the group’s full-year target of 5.6 per cent. Rival Renault is looking at full-year ebit margins of near 8 per cent, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Volkswagen wants to raise the VW brand margin to 6.5 per cent by 2026. It last year outlined €10bn of performance improvements. The recently reported plant closures and employment reductions might add another €4bn, thinks Daniel Schwarz at Stifel. Combined, such measures account for roughly 15 per cent of VW brand sales — a lot more than it needs to meet its margin target. 

Investors may hope that this overshoot speaks to VW’s huge potential to cut costs and cushion the worst of the slowdown in vehicle sales. The fear, however, is that it instead reflects a deteriorating environment in which Chinese carmakers continue to gain share domestically and abroad, electric vehicle sales prove dilutive to margins and pricing on internal combustion engines declines. 

That, coupled with the fact that mooted cuts and closures will face fierce opposition, explains why VW’s stock trades at 3.3 times next year’s earnings. Investors clearly do not believe that the carmaker is getting its show back on the road.

Le nouvel homme fort du groupe de travaux publics prend progressivement toutes les rênes opérationnelles. Il confie à Nicolas Notebaert le pilotage des autoroutes françaises de Vinci, dirigées par Pierre Coppey.

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Pierre Anjolras, qui doit prendre le 17 avril prochain la succession de Xavier Huillard comme directeur général de Vinci, avance déjà ses pions. Selon une note interne dont l’Informé a eu connaissance, celui qui a été nommé directeur général opérationnel en mai dernier étend déjà ses responsabilités à l’ensemble du groupe. Ancien patron de la division Construction, Pierre Anjolras pilotait déjà depuis quelques mois les pôles énergie et immobilier. Depuis cette semaine, il chapeaute, aussi, les activités de concessions d’infrastructures, bouclant ainsi la supervision de toutes les branches de Vinci.

Cette évolution s’accompagne d’une confirmation importante : Pierre Anjolras a choisi de confier le pilotage des concessions d’autoroutes en France à Nicolas Notebaert, le directeur général de Vinci Concessions, selon nos informations. Ce dernier, âgé de 54 ans, étend donc son périmètre sur ce secteur hautement stratégique et lucratif qui était jusqu’à présent la chasse gardée de Pierre Coppey, directeur général adjoint du groupe et président de Vinci Autoroutes. Entré il y a 32 ans au sein du géant français du BTP et des concessions, celui-ci est un expert reconnu, et craint du côté de l’État, des contrats de concessions autoroutières passés avec des entreprises d’abord publiques puis privées. Âgé de 61 ans, il a fait de cette division la vache à lait du groupe : elle représentait à elle seule en 2023 un résultat d’exploitation de 3,3 milliards d’euros, soit 40 % de la marge de Vinci.

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Nommé PDG de Cofiroute fin 2007, Pierre Coppey a vu ses fonctions élargies en juillet 2009 à la présidence de Vinci Autoroutes, qui regroupe toutes les concessions autoroutières en France (ASF, Cofiroute, Escota et Arcour). Propulsé directeur général délégué du groupe en 2014, il a assumé en parallèle la présidence de Vinci Concessions jusqu’en 2016. Après cette date, il s’est concentré sur les autoroutes en France tandis que Nicolas Notebaert a pris la direction du pôle Concessions (les autoroutes à l’étranger, les aéroports mais aussi les lignes de chemin de fer, comme la LGV Tours-Bordeaux, et le Stade de France).

« Pierre Coppey a été le dauphin pressenti de Xavier Huillard, avant qu’un revirement violent ne le rétrograde, explique une source interne. Il a montré tout son savoir-faire pour dégager de très beaux résultats pour le groupe mais il est aussi assez décrié pour sa personnalité abrupte. » Le dirigeant avait défendu bec et ongles, notamment devant le Sénat et l’Assemblée nationale, les intérêts des sociétés d’autoroutes dans la polémique autour des « surprofits » tirés des contrats négociés avec l’État. Beaucoup en interne jugent que cette réorganisation des périmètres le fragilise, certains le voyant même déjà sur le départ. « Il reste aujourd’hui membre du Comex de Vinci et président de Vinci Autoroutes », indique le groupe.

Italian group bucks gloom but warns that conditions in Asia are becoming ‘more challenging’

Italian luxury group Prada has continued to defy the broader luxury sector slowdown after posting strong quarterly revenue growth in contrast to many of its rivals.

The Milan-based group said on Wednesday like-for-like sales in the three months to September 30 were up 18 per cent compared to a year earlier, without giving a total figure. This was driven by its Miu Miu label, which recorded a 105 per cent jump in sales in the period.

Sales at its eponymous Prada brand also grew, albeit by a far more moderate 2 per cent but still in sharp contrast to those at rival label Gucci, whose owner Kering reported last week that like-for-like revenues had fallen 25 per cent in the third quarter.

The luxury sector is facing a global slowdown amid decreased demand and a slump in Chinese sales. Shares in LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury group and considered a bellwether for the sector, have fallen around 15 per cent since the beginning of the year. The French group blamed a drop in revenues in the third quarter to falling sales in Asia and lower growth than expected in Japan, which it attributed to “a stronger yen”. Sales were also flat in the US.

Meanwhile, rival Kering, whose shares are down more than 40 per cent since January, warned investors last week its profits would almost halve in 2024 due to its main brand’s Gucci weak performance.

Prada represents one of few exceptions among the largest luxury groups, alongside Hermès, and it has continued to record strong growth in the Asia Pacific region including in Japan and in the Middle East throughout the year.

Chief executive Andrea Guerra said he expected the group to continue in its “above-market” growth trajectory but the group conceded that while sales growth had remained “high” in Japan over the third quarter, there was a “deceleration” compared to the previous quarter without releasing specific figures.

The company also warned that market conditions in Asia Pacific, where sales have climbed by 12 per cent in first nine months of the year, were becoming “more challenging”.

Prada’s net revenues were up 18 per cent to €3.8bn in the first nine months of the year.

In the nine months to the end of September, the Italian group’s sales grew by 53 per cent at constant exchange rates in Japan fuelled by “solid internal demand and strong tourist flows”.

“We are operating in a challenging environment for the entire luxury value chain,” said Prada group chair Patrizio Bertelli. “Nonetheless we continue to see opportunities for our brands and we remain committed to our investment plan in retail, technology and industrial capabilities.”

The group’s Miu Miu brand, which is named after its founder and creative director Miuccia Prada, was long considered “Prada’s little sister”, catering to younger consumers at a lower price tag.

However more recently it has consistently outshone the main Prada brand through its experimental designs, successfully expanding its reach to a more diverse group of consumers of all ages. Its micro skirts and sequinned knickers, which sell for as much as €4,000, have been sported by young Asian influencers and Hollywood celebrities like Nicole Kidman.

The label’s chief executive, Benedetta Petruzzo, was poached last month by LVMH-owned Dior. She is yet to be replaced.

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