Eli Lilly secures long-awaited FDA approval for its obesity pill. Here's what to know

Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Stocks are rallying for the second straight session on optimism around an off-ramp to the war in the Middle East. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social early Wednesday that Iran’s “New Regime President” asked for a ceasefire, but the U.S. is pushing for a complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil waterway. But at the same time, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Amazon’s cloud computing operation in Bahrain was damaged by an Iranian strike. That comes on the heels of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatening to attack U.S. tech companies with Middle East operations. We should get a better sense of the war’s timeline Wednesday night, as Trump is scheduled to address the nation at 9 p.m. ET. The wait is over, and a new chapter in the GLP-1 boom is here. Eli Lilly announced that the Food and Drug Administration has approved its once-daily GLP-1 pill for obesity. The drug, which carries the active ingredient orforglipron, will be marketed under the name Foundayo. Lilly said Foundayo will be made available through its online LillyDirect program, with prescriptions accepted immediately and shipping starting April 6. Broader availability in the U.S. through retail pharmacies and telehealth providers will follow shortly thereafter. In an anticipation of FDA approval, Lilly built up a stockpile of Foundayo to ensure it has plenty of supply to meet what’s expected to be strong demand. After injectable GLP-1s soared in popularity in recent years, the introduction of oral versions is seen as a way to expand the market to needle-adverse patients. They could also play an important role as a maintenance therapies for people who started on weekly injectables. Lilly had guided for a second-quarter launch, and we are pleased to see this happen within the first week of the quarter, rather than the process dragging out longer. The market clearly agrees, as Lilly shares rallied about 5% Wednesday afternoon. Rival Novo Nordisk may have had the first mover advantage in the oral GLP-1 space and has the benefit of leveraging the same Wegovy name as its popular injectable version. Novo also argues the Wegovy pill generates superior weight loss than Lilly’s pill, based on their respective late-stage obesity studies. However, Foundayo has no consumption restrictions on food, water and time of day. The Wegovy pill, by contrast, is supposed to be taken first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Additionally, Lilly’s pill bested oral Wegovy in a head-to-head study looking at their benefits to diabetes patients , including on weight loss. Lilly is also pursuing FDA approval to market the drug for diabetes. As of Wednesday, analysts currently forecast Foundayo to generate roughly $1.55 billion in sales this year, growing to about $14.8 billion in 2030, according to FactSet. DuPont completed the sale of its Aramids business within the timeline it provided last month. The divestiture of brands like Kevlar and Nomex to Arclin brought DuPont pretax cash proceeds of $1.2 billion, along with a $300 million note receivable and non-controlling common equity interest in Arclin valued at $325 million. Georgia-based Arclin is owned by private-equity firm TJX. With this cash windfall, we expect DuPont management to be on the hunt for acquisitions to boost its health-care business. The sale is part of DuPont’s strategy to get out of slower-growing, cyclical and low-margin business to boost exposure to faster-growing end markets. With the right execution, portfolio transformations like this are rewarded with a higher price-to-earnings multiple. We remain bullish on cybersecurity and do not think the industry will be disintermediated by large language models (LLMs) and AI startups. Toy maker Hasbro became the latest company to disclose a cybersecurity incident that has interrupted its daily operations. As we learned from Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora last night on “Mad Money,” bad actors will only get better and faster in the future because of " weaponized intelligence ." Arora believes AI models are powerful, but not effective as defensive systems, which is why he called on AI labs and LLM providers to partner with cybersecurity vendors to develop the security solutions of the future. There are no major earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday and before the opening bell on Thursday. On the economic data side, we’ll see the monthly job cuts report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, as well as the government’s weekly jobless claims. (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.