The new generation of drugs against obesity 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 will entail a very high economic cost, of up to US$4 trillion 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.
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 enables similar weight loss,” said 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 a 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 anti-obesity pills could generate a global market of up to US$54 billion by 2030. And that fuels the interest of laboratories to develop this remedy.
On the other hand, for this year, the global pharmaceutical industry will surely pulverize its billing forecasts, which for this year are around US$1.43 trillion.
In 2021 they reached US$ 920,000 million. This figure, equivalent to 851.700 million euros at the current exchange rate, refers only to prescription drugs, that is, those that are supplied in hospitals or can be purchased at pharmacies with a prescription.
If the over-the-counter products are added, the total turnover is 1.32 billion euros, almost double the US annual defense budget.