Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) are the two most valuable healthcare companies in the world. Combined, they're worth nearly $1.4 trillion. And it's conceivable that their individual valuations could top $1 trillion in the future. How they got here is no mystery; they both possess some exciting glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs in their portfolios. Novo Nordisk has Ozempic and Wegovy, while Lilly has Zepbound and Mounjaro.

Over the past five years, these stocks have risen by more than 450%. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk look unstoppable. But there's one problem on the horizon, which investors should be keeping a close eye on.

Investors are buying up shares of both companies assuming that they will dominate the GLP-1 weight loss market. Eli Lilly is trading at around 120 times its trailing earnings, while Novo Nordisk is at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of nearly 50. At those kinds of multiples, investors are expecting a lot of future growth.

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Source Fool.com