Eli Lilly (LLY +0.13%) has had an impressive run over the past few years. The stock is up 410% over the last five years and 58% over the past 52 weeks. Its performance this year, however, has been a bit more modest, up just 10.1%. So, it’s underperforming the broader market, as measured by the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.51%), which gained around 12.5% so far in 2026.

I think the deceleration in the stock’s climb this year is probably due to its run-up over the past few years, which has made it expensive. Lilly currently trades at about 40 times trailing earnings.

Image source: Getty Images.

But remember, Eli Lilly makes the world’s best-selling drug. In the third quarter of 2025, the company’s tirzepatide, a GLP-1 dual receptor agonist,…