When Danish scientist Jens Juul Holst identified in 1986 that gut hormone GLP-1 stimulates insulin and suppresses appetite, obesity was far from the health problem it is now and a drug harnessing the finding was a distant prospect.
But with a billion, or 1 in 8, people at present classed as obese worldwide, the work on GLP-1 by Holst and other scientists has proved crucial to the development of two blockbuster injectable weight-loss drugs: Wegovy and Zepbound. Developed respectively by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, they are now being prescribed to millions of people.
Wegovy has been on sale since only 2021 and Zepbound was approved just five months ago, but Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are already leading the development of the next generation of weight-loss drugs. Hoping to catch up and win a share of a market that is predicted to be worth up to $150bn by 2030 are dozens of biotechs and other pharma groups.