Eli Lilly looks to sharpen its domestic supply edge by building another U.S. plant
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CNBC Finance
3 min read
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch â an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Markets are moving lower on Friday , putting the S & P 500 's positive week in jeopardy. Apple shares are down despite an exceptional quarter reported Thursday evening and better-than-expected revenue and gross margin guidance. Fears that rising memory prices will hurt margins in the second half of 2026 are weighing on the stock, even as some of those constraints are driven by iPhone demand. Sales of iPhones grew 23% year over year, its best result since the September 2021 quarter. We continue to say, "Own Apple; don't trade it." Elsewhere in the market, there isn't exactly a race to buy the enterprise software-as-a-service stocks after Thursday's carnage, but there are signs of stabilization in Microsoft , CrowdStrike , and Palo Alto Networks . Eli Lilly continues to expand its U.S. manufacturing footprint . The pharmaceutical giant announced Friday it plans to invest more than $3.5 billion in a new facility in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. The site will be Lilly's latest location for making injectable medicine. It is expected to produce next-generation weight-loss therapies, including retatrutide , an injectable medication with higher weight-loss efficacy than Zepbound, its commercially available obesity treatment. In a Phase 3 study, participants with obesity and knee osteoarthritis taking retatrutide 12 mg lost an average of 28.7% of their body weight at 68 weeks . Construction of the facility is expected to begin this year, with plans to be operational in 2031. Eli Lilly's latest announcement is part of a larger investment commitment of more than $50 billion to boost manufacturing in the United States. The move is aimed at avoiding import tariffs and maintaining a domestic supply edge over its competitors. As we examine Eli Lilly's expanding portfolio of obesity drugs, each product is designed to address distinct patient needs. The once-weekly injectable Zepbound is best geared for the larger obesity population. The soon-to-be FDA-approved once-daily oral weight-loss pill, orforglipron, offers lower efficacy and potentially more side effects than Zepbound but provides the convenience of not requiring a needle injection. And retatrutide's higher efficacy is likely best targeted for the population that needs to lose even more weight fast to alleviate other issues, like pain caused by knee osteoarthritis. Another 20% of the S & P 500 is scheduled to report earnings next week ; by Friday, we'll be through more than half of the index. Within the portfolio, we'll hear from Eaton on Tuesday, Eli Lilly and Alphabet on Wednesday, and Bristol Myers , Linde , and Amazon on Thursday. In addition, the January non-farm payroll report is out on Friday before the bell. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
