Backed by one-year EPS and revenue growth estimates of 21.72% and 16.23%, respectively, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) ranks among the best growth stocks to buy and hold in 2026.
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As of April 23, 2026, a majority of analysts covering the stock have a Buy rating on it; that is, 77% of all covering analysts, and their consensus price target of $1,250 suggests Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) could climb around 40% from current levels.
That confidence was on display the same day, when Guggenheim raised its price target on Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) to $1,183 from $1,163 and held on to its “Buy” rating, just ahead of the company’s first quarter results.
The firm updated its model to account for a disclosed $584 million charge tied to in-process research and development, equal to $0.52 per share, folding in the cost of Lilly’s recently announced acquisitions of Centessa Pharmaceuticals and Kelonia Therapeutics. Even with those charges weighing on near-term earnings, Guggenheim kept a constructive view on Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY).
The acquisitions themselves tell the bigger story.
On April 20, 2026, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) agreed to acquire Kelonia in a deal worth up to $7.0 billion — $3.25 billion upfront with the remainder tied to milestone-based payments. Kelonia’s technology is designed to generate CAR-T therapies inside the body rather than outside it, with its lead candidate KLN-1010 targeting a protein called BCMA in patients with multiple myeloma.
A few weeks earlier, on March 31, 2026, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) had also agreed to acquire Centessa Pharmaceuticals to bolster its neuroscience pipeline. Centessa’s lead asset, cleminorexton, showed a potentially best-in-class profile in Phase 2a studies across three related sleep disorders, which are narcolepsy type 1, narcolepsy type 2, and idiopathic hypersomnia.
Thus, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is making a deliberate push into high-value areas of medicine. Management believes the pipeline these deals add can keep it growing for years to come.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) develops, manufactures, discovers, and sells pharmaceutical products. These products span oncology, diabetes, immunology, neuroscience, and other therapies.
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