By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Eli Lilly stock (NYSE:LLY) rose 5% in Wednesday’s premarket trading after the company raised its guidance for the current financial year.
Also helping the stock’s gains was the company’s forecast for the next financial year that is largely unchanged even though the company anticipates significantly lower revenue from its Covid-19 antibody therapy.
Adjusted operating margins are also seen improving by 2 percentage points to 32% in 2022.
The company expects its key products to drive volume growth in 2022.
At the midpoint of its guidance range, 2021 revenue is now seen at $28.15 billion, compared with a previous forecast of $27.4 billion.
The revised guidance comes on the back of an additional order of $1.29 billion the company won last month from the U.S. government for its Covid-19 antibody cocktail therapy. The company had won a smaller order for the same in September when the Delta variant raged.
The company now expects Covid-19 therapies to bring in about $2.1 billion in sales in 2021, up from an earlier forecast of $1.3 billion.
For 2022, the drug giant has pegged the top end of the revenue guidance at the same level as this year’s forecast of $28.3 billion. The lower end of the 2022 revenue guidance is set at $27.8 billion.