Slimming down is big business

A whole new race to corner the weight-loss drug market has begun—and Eli Lilly is pulling ahead of its rivals.

Big pharma companies are developing GLP-1 pills as opposed to the injections that are currently on the market. The reason that matters is pretty intuitive: A daily pill is much easier to take than a weekly shot, and could be cheaper, too. That would open up the weight-loss drug market to a whole new swath of potential customers and avert the supply chain challenges that have nagged the industry over the past few years.

In fact, oral weight-loss drugs could one day account for roughly a third of the overall GLP-1 market—a market that Guggenheim analysts predict could be worth up to $150 billion annually within the next decade.

There are no FDA-approved GLP-1 pills on the market right now, but that’s set to change in the next few months.

Weight-loss wars

Eli Lilly announced yesterday that its new oral drug beat Novo Nordisk’s in a head-to-head study, saying that it helped patients with Type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar more than Novo's over 52 weeks. In addition, Eli Lilly’s pill caused those patients to lose 9% of their body weight, compared to 5% from Novo’s drug.

But Novo didn’t take the news lying down: The Danish pharma giant revealed its own numbers today, arguing that its “Wegovy pill” helped patients lose nearly 17% of body weight over 64 weeks.

Novo Nordisk popped 6.29% today, while Eli Lilly rose 0.35%.

Weighing the options

Novo Nordisk had the early lead in the GLP-1 market, but blew it after a slew of supply chain issues slowed down its rollout. It’s hoping to regain the top spot during the oral drug era, but analysts believe that Eli Lilly has a roughly three-year lead in the race to develop a pill.

But that race is far from over: Other pharma heavyweights like AstraZeneca and Structure Therapeutics are also developing their own versions of these pills.—LB