Weight-loss drug competition heats up
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Prospective competitors to blockbuster weight-loss drugs are heading toward commercialization and posing a threat to industry behemoths Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, Axios' Nathan Bomey writes.
Why it matters: Booming sales of Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound have led to widespread shortages of GLP-1 treatments.
Driving the news: San Diego-based Viking Therapeutics is accelerating development of its own injectable GLP-1 treatment after receiving positive feedback from the Food and Drug Administration.
- Trial results showing a 15% reduction in body weight after 13 weeks mean the treatment could make it to the market a year ahead of schedule, BTIG analyst Justin Zelin wrote in a research note.
- Meanwhile, Swiss pharma giant Roche said this month that an experimental daily pill had delivered average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks for people experiencing obesity but not diabetes.
Other competition is coming from compounding pharmacies that are providing up to 2 million American patients with regular doses of semaglutide, the scientific name for Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus formulations, or tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Mounjaro, per KFF Health News.
- Novo and Lilly fiercely oppose the compounding business, encourage doctors to avoid the products and have taken pharmacies to court.
- But the FDA allows and even encourages compounding pharmacies to produce and sell copycats when a drug is in short supply, KFF Health News reports.
