America's Best Companies of 2026

Led by recent positive clinical results from Lilly, Roche, and AstraZeneca, the $100 billion market for GLP-1 could potentially include other medical areas like cardiovascular, kidney, liver, arthritis, and sleep apnea disorders as the drugs evolve to treat not just diabetes and obesity, but all kinds of metabolic conditions.

In Q1 2026, Lilly reported a quarterly earning of $19.8 billion worldwide, up 56% from last year, with Mounjaro and Zepbound together accounting for $12.9 billion. The company is also continuing to test new therapies to maintain its lead in the metabolic health market; a cholesterol-lowering treatment it’s developing with Verve has shown promising early efficacy. 

Merck reported Q1 2026 revenues of $16.3 billion led by its strong portfolio in oncology and animal health. “We're in the midst of initial launches of over 20 new products,” said CEO Robert Davis on the earnings call in April, “almost all of which have blockbuster potential across a broad set of therapeutic areas.” The move to diversify and re-design their portfolio is timely as the company’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy, Keytruda (which accounted for $8 billion of their Q1 revenue), has patents set to expire in 2028.