Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are making blockbuster drugs. Can they maintain their lead?
-1 agonists help users shed fat, and with it the negative health effects of obesity. This can have life-changing effects for the people who take them. It is also increasingly affecting the lives of corporate citizens. Since June 2021, when Wegovy, the first has crashed by 90%. On February 28th Oprah Winfrey announced that she would leave the dieting firm’s board and sell all her shares in order to avoid conflict of interest around her use of-1s.
Making the drugs requires two main components: the active ingredient and the “skinny pens” that patients use to inject the medicine. Right now both are hard to find. Neither the Danish firm nor its American rival has explained why they cannot get hold of more of the necessary chemicals, but it is clearly a problem.
The limited production capacity has helped the companies in one way, by masking another problem. So far only half of the 110m obese Americans have access to the drugs through their health insurance. To hit the rosy revenue forecasts, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk need to make their drugs available to a wider group of patients. Medicare, a government health-care programme for the elderly, is prohibited by law from covering weight-loss drugs. Private health insurers are put off by the drugs’ costs.