The next major development in weight loss medications may not be about losing weight at all.
Wall Street Journal pharmaceutical reporter Peter Loftus highlighted on Monday that the future sales of GLP-1 drugs will likely be driven by finding new medical applications beyond their original weight reduction purpose.
Currently leading the market for GLP-1 drugs are Novo Nordisk, producer of Ozempic and Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound. These medications work by mimicking a gut hormone that regulates blood sugar levels and suppresses appetite. Initially, these drugs were introduced to treat Type 2 diabetes but have since been used to combat obesity.
However, with health insurers hesitant to cover the treatments exclusively for obesity—which can cost up to $1,300 a month—pharmaceutical companies are exploring additional medical uses to broaden insurance coverage. These include potential treatments for heart, kidney, and liver diseases, with initial efforts showing promising results.
In March, the Food and Drug Administration expanded the approved use of Wegovy to include reducing heart risk for obese or overweight adults. This update allowed Medicare to cover the drug, making it accessible to about 3 million more individuals.
BMO Capital Markets analysts project that this new heart-related use of Wegovy could generate an additional $3.2 billion in annual sales for Novo Nordisk.
In April, Eli Lilly announced that Zepbound showed promising results in treating sleep apnea in obese patients during late-stage clinical trials. The company plans to seek FDA approval to expand the drug’s use to include this condition.
Jefferies analysts estimate that this could boost Zepbound’s sales by $5 billion.
“It builds this wall of evidence,” Derek Asay, senior vice president of value and access at Eli Lilly, told Loftus regarding trials for other GLP-1 drug uses. “It helps give that reason to believe there’s more than weight loss here.”
The soaring demand for these medications has propelled Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly into the ranks of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by market capitalization. The high demand has even caused ongoing shortages and significantly contributed to Denmark’s GDP last year.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that the global market for these drugs will reach $105 billion by 2030.