US pharma giant Eli Lilly won the first act of the GLP-1 drug war, outpacing Novo Nordisk in sales of injectable weight-loss drugs and winning about 70 per cent of the market. But a second wave is now under way: both companies have launched their products in pill form, and this time the advantage might lie with Novo.
The Danish drugmaker certainly got off the blocks at speed. Patient numbers for Novo’s pill three weeks after it had been launched were about twice the level of its rival’s at the same milestone, possibly helped by the fact that it was first to market. A more significant reason is likely to be that, unlike in injectables, this time it is Novo that seems to have the better product. Its pill has demonstrated weight loss of about 17 per cent, compared with roughly 12 per cent at Lilly.
Novo’s treatment also builds on a familiar molecule and the Wegovy brand, while Lilly’s requires prescribers to get to grips with a new formula. And while Novo’s pill comes with stricter food-timing requirements, it appears to integrate more easily with common daily medications, such as the statins often taken by patients with high cholesterol.