Elon Musk Says Eli Lilly Has ‘Some Banger Drugs Coming Out’ After CEO Dave Ricks Bets Against Vinod Khosla's Big Biotech Skepticism

On Friday, Elon Musk said Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) has "some banger drugs coming out”, after the drugmaker’s CEO Dave Ricks took on a “bet” responding to venture investor Vinod Khosla on X.

Ricks Answers Big Biotech Skeptics

Ricks’ reply came after Khosla commented on Musk’s post, which shared a thread by biotech enthusiast Mgoes about potential breakthroughs in human biology.

“Agree 100% but unlikely it will come from the big bio companies,” said Khosla. To which Ricks replied, “I’ll take that bet.”

Khosla’s post followed Musk’s earlier comment that breakthroughs "in everything are accelerating exponentially." Musk added that an exponential "always starts off looking small."

Neither Musk nor Ricks named specific drugs.

Viral Biotech Thread Sparked the Exchange

The exchange began with a post earlier this week by X user "Mgoes," who said a massive shift is underway in human biology. He said he does not work at Lilly, Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) or other large drugmakers.

He cited recent results, including Lilly’s retatrutide reached about 28% weight loss in a Phase 3 trial; a once-daily pill roughly doubled median survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer, 13.2 months versus 6.6; and a personalized mRNA vaccine beat Merck & Co.’s (NYSE:MRK) Keytruda alone in a 1,137-patient melanoma Phase 3.

Retatrutide was the only drug on the list linked to Lilly. The day after Mgoes’ post, Lilly announced that the once-weekly drug had met its primary goal in a Phase 3 trial comparing it with Novo’s Ozempic 2 mg. The trial involved 1,298 adults with Type 2 diabetes.

After 80 weeks, patients taking retatrutide lost an average of 44.3 pounds (19.5%) on the 9 mg dose and 47.4 pounds (20.9%) on the 12 mg dose, versus 20.9 pounds (9.4%) on Ozempic. Blood sugar levels also improved. A1C, which measures blood sugar control, dropped by 2.2% with both retatrutide doses, compared with 1.8% with Ozempic.

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