Forget Weight Loss Drugs: Here’s Another Reason to Buy Eli Lilly Stock
Eli Lilly (LLY -0.21%) brought in $19.8 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, and most of it can be traced back to the medicines everyone has heard of by now: tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes and Zepbound for obesity. Its weight loss medicines, and the ones behind them in the pipeline, will likely carry the top line for years, though leadership in that market is never guaranteed.
But that didn’t stop it from taking steps to expand its pipeline into other areas. On July 16, Lilly agreed to buy AtaiBeckley (ATAI -0.14%) for $2.8 billion, plus up to $1 billion more in potential milestone payments. This and other recent acquisitions are another reason to buy the stock, so let’s examine it in more detail.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Lilly’s mental health portfolio is getting deeper
Buying Atai isn’t Lilly’s only recent step into the mental health space.
Lilly was already running a phase 3 psychiatry program built on similar biology as its weight-loss drugs. Brenipatide, a dual GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) and GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide) receptor agonist, is in late-stage testing for major depressive disorder (MDD), and it’s additionally in development for alcohol use disorder.
So even as the company diversifies its pipeline with bolt-on acquisitions and new investment in research and development (R&D), it’s also repurposing assets with the goal of building out its portfolio.
AtaiBeckley’s lead asset, BPL-003, is an intranasal formulation of the fast-acting psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT, and it’s now in phase 3 trials for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), meaning depression that hasn’t responded favorably to at least two prior antidepressants. It holds a Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but the phase 3 data won’t be available until early 2029.
Today’s Change
(-0.21%) $-2.52
Current Price
$1,218.14
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$1211.01 – $1229.19
52wk Range
$623.78 – $1249.45
Volume
1.1M
Avg Vol
3.1M
Gross Margin
82.83%
Dividend Yield
0.53%
Another of the biotech’s programs approaching maturity is VLS-01, a dissolving film applied inside the cheek that delivers the psychedelic DMT. Its phase 2b trial in treatment-resistant depression is scheduled to release data in the fourth quarter of this year, and management plans to advance it into a phase 3 trial in major depressive disorder.
These new programs are an insurance policy
One thing to appreciate about the Atai acquisition is that it probably won’t be a big earner for Lilly in comparison to the rest of its portfolio, even if it’s a bullish factor over the long term.
The markets that Atai’s candidates are targeting are simply not that big. For instance, Johnson & Johnson‘s esketamine nasal spray, Spravato, which is approved for treating treatment-resistant depression, brought in $584 million in sales globally in the second quarter of 2026, with peak sales that Jefferies puts at as much as $5 billion a year. So even a category-leading depression drug at full stride would be a small slice of a company guiding for $82 billion to $85 billion in revenue this year. That constraint could ultimately change if whatever Lilly launches with Atai can be developed into a relevant treatment for a larger market than it’s currently targeting, but it’d take years at best.
Today’s Change
(-0.14%) $-0.01
Current Price
$7.17
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$7.16 – $7.19
52wk Range
$3.27 – $7.22
Volume
12.2M
Avg Vol
10.9M
Nonetheless, AtaiBeckley is Lilly’s 12th acquisition of this year, and when the purchase closes, it’ll become the first leading late-clinical-stage psychedelic stock to be acquired by a leading pharma company.
No single drug that is commercialized as a result of that list of purchases is going to significantly push Lilly’s massive top line on its own overnight, but together, and perhaps with some additional R&D investment into expanding the indications they’re approved for, they could, if execution goes Lilly’s way. And, like Lilly’s rapidly expanding pipeline and its blockbuster weight loss medicines, the acquisition is a reason to buy the stock.
