Jabs to pills Weight-loss drugs switch drives race for share of $200bn market

I just felt slow: I want to be able to do anything my kids want to do and not have weight be a factor.

- Julia Kollewe

Advertising for weight-loss medication, a massive growth area for pharma firms, in New York

(Photograph: Richard Levine/Alamy)

Even a ride or a water park - things have weight limits,” says Melody Ewert, 44, from Minnesota.Ewert has just switched from Eli Lilly’s Zepbound weekly injection to Novo Nordisk’s new daily Wegovy pill. Analysts believe the arrival of easy-to-take tablets could push weight-loss treatments further into the mainstream in a year that has been described as pivotal for the booming anti-obesity market. The new pills, like the jabs, mimic the gut hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite.

Denmark’s Novo set down a marker last month, with the US launch of its daily pill - the first oral GLP-1 drug for weight loss.

The Wegovy pill has got off to a strong start in the US, with 50,000 prescriptions a week by late January, more than for the Wegovy shot after its launch in June 2021 and rival jabs at that stage. It was “the fastest drug launch ever”, according to health analysts at Leerink Partners, after the US Food and Drug Administration gave the green light on 22 December.

However, concerns over the price, global supplies and side-effects of treatments persist in the rapidly growing sector, estimated to be worth $200bn (£145bn) by the end of the decade.

Determined to lose weight, Ewert initially lost 16.6kg (37lb) without medications, but quickly put most of it back on, and started taking Zepbound in late July. She shed 22.7kg, enabling her to ditch the seatbelt extender on planes. “To be able to shop in the normal shop is a big deal; before I would have to just order clothes, try them on at home and then return them,” she says.