Eli Lilly’s third straight month of gains has helped it become the largest pharmaceutical company in the world by market value, surpassing Johnson & Johnson.
An 8.5% gain in May for Lilly lifted its shares to a record high and pushed its market capitalization to about $408 billion. J&J, meanwhile, slumped 5.3% during the month, dragging its value down to $403 billion.
The Lilly rally was fueled in large part by two major announcements. The first was that its new diabetes drug worked for obesity, followed shortly by news that its experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s succeeded in a final-stage trial.