The lucrative market for obesity drugs

Anne PADIEU

The new generation of drugs against obesity It generates great expectations and market opportunities that investors want to take advantage of to treat a disease that affects a large part of humanity.

Obesity is a chronic disease that increases the risk of cardiovascular problems, diabetes, some types of cancer, and causes complications in respiratory infections, such as covid-19.

Its causes are not only due to the type of diet and lifestyle, as they may be related to genetics.

If prevention and medical care do not improve, the World Obesity Federation predicts that by 2025 half of the world’s population will be overweight.

According to his calculations, this it will entail a very high economic cost, of up to 4 trillion dollars a year, a figure similar to the GDP of Germany.

Science, however, has advanced in the search for remedies and developed a new generation of medicines.

These new treatments allow much greater weight loss than the previous ones, with fewer side effects (such as diarrhea or nausea). They also help treat diabetes and reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease. SDD

– Feeling full –

With these drugs, a hormone secreted by the intestines (GLP-1) is imitated, creating in the brain the feeling of satiety that food gives.

The American pharmaceutical Eli Lilly and the Danish Novo Nordisk significantly increased their sales during the second quarter of this year thanks to molecules that stimulate weight loss.

After Eli Lilly confirmed that its diabetes drug, Mounjaro, also works for weight loss, its turnover for that product approached $1 billion in the April-June period.

And the figure could skyrocket even more if the US Drug Agency (FDA) authorized Mounjaro this year as a specific molecule against obesity, in a country where 40% of the population is overweight.

“The therapy will certainly be an alternative to bariatric surgery, as Mounjaro allows for similar weight loss,” says Akash Patel, pharmaceutical analyst at GlobalData.

– Strong demand –

The future also looks just as bright for the Danish laboratory Novo Nordisk.

A study this week showed that its Wegovym obesity treatment, whose sales quadrupled in the second quarter, reduces the risk of cardiovascular accidents by 20%.

However, “one of the main barriers that patients have to access these drugs is their cost,” explains the American Association of Pharmacists.

A subcutaneous injection once a week of one of these drugs costs more than $10,000 per year.

According to experts, one way to reduce its price would be to provide it through pills.

Eli Lilly and the also American Pfizer are already trying to develop remedies of this style.

Investors estimate that these pills against obesity could generate a world market of up to 54,000 million dollars by 2030. And that fuels the interest of laboratories to develop this remedy.

Prepared with information from AFP