Influential Wall Street investor Jordi Visser believes Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) has a chance to become the world’s largest and the leading artificial intelligence company within the next five years, arguing the drugmaker is building an AI advantage that investors are largely overlooking.
Speaking on “The Pomp Podcast” with crypto investor and entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano Saturday, Visser said Eli Lilly’s more than 150 years of research, clinical trial data and drug-development experience provide the foundation for specialized AI models that could give the company an edge in both healthcare and AI.
Eli Lilly, whose flagship medicines include Type 2 diabetes treatment Mounjaro and weight-management drug Zepbound, is already the world’s largest pharmaceutical company by market capitalization, with a valuation of more than $1 trillion.
Why Data Could Be Lilly’s Biggest Advantage
Visser argued that Eli Lilly’s greatest AI asset is its century-plus trove of proprietary research and clinical data, saying, “all the failures, all the successes, all that data actually matters” when it comes to training specialized AI models for drug discovery.
“I’ve joked before, I don’t know if an asset management company’s data is as valuable,” Visser said, adding that Eli Lilly’s vast repository of clinical and research data could provide a far stronger foundation for AI-driven drug discovery and development.
Building An AI Ecosystem
Beyond data, Visser emphasized Eli Lilly’s growing investments in AI infrastructure and partnerships, noting that the company operates its own data center equipped with roughly 1,000 GPUs, allowing it to train and deploy specialized models using proprietary information.
Visser cited Lilly’s partnership with Isomorphic Labs, Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG)-backed drug discovery company that leverages DeepMind’s AlphaFold technology to identify potential new treatments.
He also highlighted Lilly’s innovation initiative, TuneLab, which helps the company build an ecosystem around its AI capabilities while expanding access to new data and research insights, as well as its collaboration with Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), including a joint AI co-innovation lab focused on accelerating drug discovery and development.
Visser believes these partnerships enables Eli Lilly to gain visibility into emerging ideas and technologies while continuing to expand its data advantage.
Why AI Could Translate Into Revenue
Unlike many AI-related investment themes, Visser believes Eli Lilly has a direct path to monetizing AI.
He argued that AI can improve multiple stages of the pharmaceutical process, from drug discovery and clinical development to regulatory approvals.
“If a drug company can get their entire process to FDA approval efficient, and at the same time they can benefit by selling better drugs, they are getting the revenue directly,” Visser said.
For Visser, Eli Lilly’s ability to combine proprietary data, AI capabilities and drug development gives it a path to becoming both an AI leader and one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Price Action: Shares of Eli Lilly, which have gained about 48% in 52 weeks, closed marginally higher at 0.5% to $1131.42 Friday
Benzinga Edge Rankings indicate that LLY has a Momentum score in the 77th percentile and a Growth score in the 99th percentile.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock
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