Since his arrival, Zepbound was predestined to unseat Ozempic. The big question is why it is taking so long

In innovation, arriving first is a tremendous push when Develop a groundbreaking product. However, it is not a guarantee of success. This is a lesson that Danish pharmaceuticals Novo Nordisk is learning in their own meats.

The last years have been marked by success the drugs of the GLP-1 family as Ozempic, Wegovy either Zepbound. The name refers to the peptide similar to glucagon-1 or LPG-1 (a hormone segregated in our body when we eat) since this type of formulas contain active compounds that “mimic” this hormone.

In origin, drugs such as Ozempic or Zepbound were designed as diabetes treatment since one of the functions of the GLP-1 hormone It is to warn the pancreas of food entry to accelerate insulin production. However, the success of these treatments occurred due to a side effect also related to this hormone: and it is that the second of the messages transmitted by the LPG-1 is addressed to the brain, and it is the one that triggers the feeling of satiety.

This is why agonist drugs of GLP-1 receptors also have a slimming effect. Companies that had compounds such as semaglutid New brands with which to market your compounds reorient to weight loss: Wegovy and Mounjaro.

Throughout this process, the drugs of the Danish pharmacist, Ozempic and Wegovy, left with a kind of advantage, but there was a problem.

The problem: the “recipe” of the American pharmaceuticals Lilly showed better results where these more treatments have highlighted, weight loss. The apparent reason is that just as the semaglutida is a simple agonist of the GLP-1 receptors, the tirzepatida is a double agonist of the GLP-1 receptors and of the receptors of the polypeptide gastric inhibitor or insulinotropic peptide dependent on glucose (GIP).

If this were not enough, the magnitude of success reached an unexpected level, which had a serious involvement: Supply problems. This was not an exclusively economic but also health problem, we reconnected that before a product focused on weight loss, Ozempic was a diabetes treatment.

A demand High and dissatisfied It is a great opportunity for the entry in play of new competitors, and this was precisely the panorama that the American pharmacist Lilly was found.

A at odds

Lilly launched Mounjaro in 2022 and success was vertiginous: the recipes shot and the new product seemed to quickly unseat their competitors. However, three years after launch it seems that the anticipated has not yet been Sorpasso. In fact, after a final stretch of 2024, some analysts wondered what was happening, why the success of Lilly’s formulas is postponing so much.

However, In an article for Biospacethe consultants Gary Stibel and Riley McCarthy, of New England Consulting Group gave another key. For them the key to Ozempic’s persistence was in the marketing. In his article, Stibel and McCarthy indicate that Lilly attributed his difficulties when reaching the expected volume of sales to the high manufacturing costs and “fluctuating” levels of inventory in a high demand context. That is, that Lilly also managed to deal with the success of his own product.

In the United States pharmaceuticals can announce more or less conventional medications that are only administered under medical prescription. According to these consultants, part of Ozempic’s success is due to these consumer -oriented campaigns. Although ultimately the choice of medication falls on the person in charge of signing the recipe, the patient’s weight can also be decisive.

Regardless of campaigns of marketingit is difficult to overestimate the value of first such a lucrative market. Ozempic monopolized headlines and covers for months, and has become a few years in a kind of vulgarized brandthat is, a brand that has become an entire category of products. Something that in the short term can be a great advantage but long entails the erosion (even legal) of the brand itself.

2025 seems to draw a most hopeful panorama For the American pharmacist, but anticipating what will happen in the medium and long term is difficult for several reasons.

Both pharmaceuticals continue to work with greater or lesser success in new formulas, double and even triple agonists that could unseat the products already settled. Laboratory results are difficult to predict and will depend in part with the future of these pharmacists.

Another important factor is that we do not know the roof of this market. The calculations From the consulting firm Goldman Sachs they expect this roof will be reached at the beginning of the decade that comes, standing at about 120,000 million dollars around 2035. There is room for growth: according to the consultant the market volume in 2025 will be about 28,000 million dollars.

This volume will have to be distributed with New formulaseven with generic alternativesthat could not take long to arrive after the threat that hits the Canadian patent of the Semaglutida. The expiration of the patents of these formulas will aggravate the need for the pharmaceuticals involved in introducing These new formulas that contribute something new to an increasingly competitive market.

In Xataka | “Ozempic face”, “Ozempic language” and “Ozempic teeth”: the other very visible effect of consuming the medicine to lose weight

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