Pharma companies report strong Q3 earnings

It’s that time again. No, not the holidays—it’s earnings season!

A handful of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have reported Q3 2026 earnings over the past couple weeks, and they were largely positive.

Geoff Meacham, managing director at investment bank Citi, told Healthcare Brew one of his biggest takeaways from this quarter’s earnings was that there is “still a pretty good backdrop for M&A.” There were 32 deals totaling $31 billion in Q3 across biopharma, according to JPMorgan. Comparatively, there were just 21 transactions totaling $8.9 billion in Q4 2024.

At the moment, no matter the size of the deal, as long as it brings in a new product to a drugmaker’s portfolio, their stocks “in almost all cases go up,” Meacham said.

Here’s an overview of a few of the top drugmakers’ results.

Eli Lilly

Lilly is still on a hot streak driven by sales of its GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. The Indianapolis-based pharma giant saw $24.4 billion in revenue for Q3, up 39% from $17.6 billion in Q3 2025.

Shares closed at $1,373.70 on Oct. 29 following the earnings release, up 6.6% from $1,288.30 at close the day before, and are up roughly 26% since the start of the year.

Sales got a boost from Mounjaro, which was FDA approved to treat cardiovascular disease for adults with Type 2 diabetes in August. Mounjaro revenue rose 65% compared to Q3 2025 from $6.5 billion to $10.7 billion. Zepbound revenue came in at $5.3 billion, a 47% increase from $3.6 billion in Q3 2025.

Lilly’s oral GLP-1, Foundayo, which launched in April, hasn’t seen sales as strong, however, bringing in just $184 million this quarter.

Lilly Chair and CEO David Ricks mentioned on the Oct. 29 earnings call that the Medicare Bridge program, which launched in July and gives Medicare patients access to GLP-1s for $50 per month, has already shown strong results for the drugmaker, with more than 500,000 people receiving a Lilly prescription.

In Q3, Lilly completed an acquisition of AtaiBeckley, a biotech developing a psychedelic drug for treatment-resistant depression and alcohol-use disorder. Shortly after the quarter ended, it also closed an acquisition of autoimmune drugmaker Merida Biosciences.

Novo

Lilly’s biggest GLP-1 competitor, Denmark-based Novo, brought in $11.8 billion in sales for Q3, up from roughly $11.2 billion in the same quarter last year.

Shares closed at $42.18 on Nov. 4 following the earnings call, a 5% increase from $40.19 at close the day before. 

Sales of its Wegovy pill, which was launched in January, brought in about $804 million for the quarter, compared to $479 million last quarter. The Wegovy pill has seen 8 million prescriptions since launch, Jamey Millar, Novo’s EVP of US operations, said during the earnings call.

Sales of injectable Wegovy were roughly $3 billion and Ozempic sales reached $4.4 billion.

Despite raising its earnings guidance, Meacham said he doesn’t think Novo has a chance at catching up to Lilly’s GLP-1 profits any time soon.

“I’m not worried about Novo whatsoever,” he said, adding that the company hasn’t been able to develop a strong follow-up to semaglutide the way Lilly has with retatrutide, which it plans to submit for approval in the Q1 2027. “Novo is still today a one-trick pony, which is kind of remarkable,” Meacham said.

Compared to Lilly’s 500,000, Novo has seen just 60,000 prescriptions through the Bridge program, Millar said during the earnings call.

In September, Novo acquired three early-stage obesity drugs from New York-based biotech Kallyope, which recently rebranded as TriGemX Bio.

AbbVie

The Chicago-based pharma company saw $17.4 billion in revenue this quarter, a 10.3% jump from Q3 last year.

AbbVie’s stock closed at $294.89 on Oct. 30 following its earnings, up about 1.4% from a $290.79 close the day before. Year to date, AbbVie’s shares have risen 29%.

The company’s immunology portfolio—which includes Skyrizi and Rinvoq, the two drugs AbbVie has promoted to replace sales from its blockbuster Humira after it lost patent exclusivity in early 2023—performed particularly well, bringing in $9.2 billion, a 16.3% increase year over year.

The company also completed an acquisition of biotech Apogee Therapeutics, which focuses on immunology and inflammatory disease treatments, this quarter.