Pharmaceuticals. We rebuild its market value from the price, split it into its parts, and compare its multiples with those of its largest competitors.
Verified figures, not advice. Every number on this page comes from the company's own filings or from exchange prices, and the source is linked. Every calculation is shown, so you can repeat it. What we do not do is tell you what a share should be worth or whether to buy it: that depends on your goals and on forecasts, and no multiple can settle it. This is a snapshot: prices of 12 Oct 2026, company results up to mid 2026. Found a mistake? Tell us and we correct it.
Market capitalisation is the value the stock market puts on all the shares together. It is the nominal share price multiplied by the number of shares.
Building blockAmountMeaning
Market capitalisation
$1.11tn
What the market asks for all the shares
+ Debt
$54.9bn
Borrowings, leases for premises excluded
- Cash
$8.9bn
Cash and equivalents
- Short-term investments
$0.0bn
Marketable securities due within a year
+ Minority interests
$0.0bn
Part of subsidiaries owned by others
Enterprise value (EV)
$1.16tn
The price of the whole business, as a buyer would see it
Of the $1.11tn market value, accounting book equity is $33.9bn. The remaining $1.08tn is what investors pay above the books: brands, software, customer relationships and expected growth that the balance sheet does not record. Price to book is 32.9x.
Context: Eli Lilly earns an EBITDA margin of 45%. The peers earn 26%, 20%, 32%, 38% (median 29%). A company that keeps more of each dollar of sales often trades at a higher multiple.
The peers are large drug makers. Eli Lilly grows faster and has higher margins than most of them, so multiples are not like for like.
- EV / EBITDA: 32.4x against a peer median of 24.3x (mean 22.5x). Difference to the median: +33%.
- EV / sales: 14.6x against a peer median of 6.4x (mean 6.2x). Difference: +128%.
- P/E: 41.7x against a peer median of 59.1x. Difference: -29%.
These are descriptions of today's prices, not forecasts. "n.m." means not meaningful, for example negative profit.
From Oct 2021 to Sep 2026 the month-end price of Eli Lilly changed by +354.2%. That is the end result. The path matters as much: the deepest fall below a previous high was -23.7%, from Aug 2024 to Aug 2025 (12 months).
It then took 3 more months to get back to that earlier high.
At the end of Sep 2026 it was 3.5% below its highest month-end (Jun 2026).
Time spent more than 20% below its high: 4 of 60 months.
Among the 23 companies in this exercise with a full five-year history, the median deepest fall was -38.5%. Eli Lilly ranks 18 of 23, from deepest, so its fall was shallower than the median.
A price move says what buyers paid, not what the business is worth. Read it next to the multiples in Step 4, and see what we mean by value.
How we made this: month-end closing prices from two independent public sources (Nasdaq historical quotes and Yahoo Finance), read on 14 October 2026. We kept a month only where the two agreed; all did, to within one cent. Prices are adjusted for splits, not for dividends. The figures and the chart are our own calculation; we do not republish the raw prices.
Prices of 12 Oct 2026 from exchange historical data. Share counts, debt, cash and results from each company's filings, read on 13 and 14 October 2026. Foreign companies are converted at one stated rate.
Eli Lilly and Company (LLY)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
- sec.gov (shares_outstanding, balance sheet, H1 flows)
- sec.gov (FY2025 income statement, segment one-offs)
- sec.gov (Q3 2026 / 9M 2026 income statement and special items)
- data.sec.gov (XBRL cross-check)
Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK)
Pfizer Inc. (PFE)
- sec.gov (shares_outstanding, balance sheet, H1 statements, other dedu)
- sec.gov (FY2025 statements, impairments detail)
- data.sec.gov (XBRL cross-check)
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV)
Questions people ask
Does a higher multiple than competitors mean the share is overvalued?
No. It means investors pay more per dollar of sales or profit. The reason can be faster growth, higher margins or lower risk, or it can be excess optimism. A multiple gap is a question to investigate, not an answer.
Why use enterprise value and not only market cap?
Market cap prices the shares only. Enterprise value adds debt and subtracts cash, so it compares the whole business regardless of how it is financed.
Why show both the mean and the median of competitors?
The mean is pulled up by one extreme value. The median is the middle value and resists outliers. When they differ a lot, trust the median more.