I weigh 1/8 ton. This is ideal for harbor seals and pandas, but not for 6’4 inch men. The good news is that I lost £ 11. In addition, dropping £ 7 is said to win a status upgrade from obesity to overweight. Call me a dreamer, but I feel like I can hit the husky by August.
There are powerful new drugs for weight loss. Passing for reasons to explain, Wall Street has huge sales forecasts for two major pharmaceutical companies.
The first is from Denmark
Novo Nordisk
(Ticker: NVO), the world’s top manufacturer of insulin. For over a decade, we have been selling medicines that help control blood sugar levels and have been approved for both type 2 diabetes and obesity due to the happy side effect of weight loss. The drug is called a GLP-1 agonist and is meant to mimic certain hormones that stimulate insulin secretion and cause a feeling of fullness.
The latest of these is semaglutide, sold as Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for obesity. Last year, we received approval for obesity in the United States. Wegovy is more effective than Novo’s older obesity drug and requires only daily to weekly self-injections, so sales are growing, but contract manufacturer issues are hampering supply.
Novo’s total sales of obesity treatments doubled year-on-year to DKK 3.4 billion, reaching approximately $ 480 million in the first three months of the year. By mid-2010, the company had a $ 1.69 billion worth of Krone’s obesity sales target, which is now said to be $ 3.72 billion. And that may be just the beginning.
Here comes another insulin giant.
Eli Lilly
(LLY) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month for tyrzepatide for diabetes. It is sold as Mounjaro. It mimics both GLP-1 and GIP. This is the second hormone involved in insulin and appetite. In tests, this dual-acting drug appears to be more effective and tolerable than Novo’s Wegoby.
Evidence of weight loss in particular is “really great,” said David Resinger, who covers Lily of SVB Securities. Barron’s.. This month, Lily unveiled her new details at a large diabetes conference in New Orleans. The highest dose patients lost an average of 22.5% of their body weight to 52 pounds. It will shrink a guy like me straight into a healthy area of height / weight charts.
Like many medicines, a complete warning list can be long and daunting. The main side effects appear to include gastrointestinal killings such as nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which disappear over time. Lily can seek approval to sell tilzepatide for obesity this year or next year.
I haven’t bought it. Trainers want to say “no pain, no profit”, but my fitness motto is “no pain”, which extends to both crunches and unwanted needles. Novo medicines may be available in the United States in the form of tablets in 2024. Since then, Novo has been working on more promising medicines that may hit the market in 2025. Lily is already working on follow-up. So for now, I keep mixing more fruits and vegetables and continue to take NoChipsOrBeer daily. In addition, a large screen exercise machine is used for virtual hiking, cycling and queuing. Yes, I know I can do such things outside. Don’t be ashamed of me on the screen.
It also costs money.Canceled
CVS health
(CVS) A program that costs $ 5 a month to shoppers in exchange for $ 10 store credits. Imagine how enthusiastic you are to pay $ 1,350 a month because you’ve fallen below the utilization modeled in break-even analysis. Wegovy’s list price. My last complaint is that these medicines affect appetite, so patients may have to continue taking them even after they reach the weight they want.
How about insurance? “Historically, insurance companies have tried to put anti-obesity drugs in a bucket of cosmetic-type drugs along the Botox line for wrinkles,” says Risinger. “But we believe that the transformative health benefits these drugs actually offer will drive much greater adoption by both health insurance and employers in the coming years.” These benefits. Seems to contain lowering blood pressure and triglycerides.
Aside from my booking, the market for these new drugs will be huge. Currently, about 42 percent of Americans are obese, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2000. Much of the rest of the world is catching up. There are 500 million potential customers worldwide.
JP Morgan believes that Lily’s new obesity drug will sell for $ 19 a day after deducting discounts, and Novo’s Wegoby will now be $ 25. It forecasts overall annual obesity drug sales of $ 34 billion by 2031, or $ 5 billion more than Lily’s total sales today.
JP Morgan predicts that Novo will eventually win 60% of the market. Last week, we upgraded our Novo stock to Overweight and demanded a 20% increase. Judging by consensus estimates, Novo’s obesity drug sales could overtake insulin within five years. SVB’s Risinger doesn’t cover Novo, but is bullish on Lilly and expects a rise of about 12%. Both stocks are more than 30 times more profitable. Lily could double profit per share in four years and Novo could double in five years.
It is difficult to infer all these secondary effects. Will insulin sales fall? Will premiums go up, or can insurers put pressure on pharmaceuticals while saving on obesity-related illnesses? How about selling fast food and snacks? History says it bets on miraculous obesity treatment, if not completely fitness. understand.
Excuse me, but it’s time for the treadmill. I want to fall more flattering like a cape wart from the weight of a panda, and Kilimanjaro is virtually not going to climb itself.
Write to Jack Hough (jack.hough@barrons.com). Follow him on Twitter Subscribe to his Barron Streetwise podcast.
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