The global boom in weight-loss drugs has reshaped human medicine, propelled pharmaceutical shares and redrawn expectations about chronic disease. Now drugmakers spy a new growth market in the US: portly pets.
Americans may fret over their waistlines, but their cats and dogs are in even worse shape. An estimated 60 per cent of the country’s cats and dogs are either overweight or obese according to a 2022 survey by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Diabetes — once rare in animals — is now among the most expensive chronic conditions in veterinary practice.
This is, of course, a financial opportunity. Owners lavish extraordinary sums on their animals. Pet spending reached $183bn in 2023, nearly four times 2003 levels, data from the Federal Reserve shows. If semaglutide can shrink a human waistline, why not a feline one? A handful of firms believe that obesity medicine, which transformed human healthcare in just a few years, could become a lucrative veterinary category.