Swiss pharmaceutical companies are desperately trying to catch up with this megatrend: The success of fat-burning injections surprises even the manufacturers

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Swiss pharmaceutical companies are often pioneers when it comes to bringing new drugs to market. But when it came to fighting obesity and introducing fat-burning injections, local healthcare companies missed the start. Now Roche and Novartis are desperately looking for a connection in the weight loss business.

The main roles are currently played by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly from the USA and the Danish company Novo Nordisk. With the acquisition of the US company Carmot, Roche announced that it has entered the fat burning injection race.

Additional investments are planned

James Sabry from Roche announced that other acquisitions may be coming in this field. Responsible for partnerships and collaborations. The executive was quoted as saying in a media report that they were looking for partners to challenge the Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk duopoly.

CEO Thomas Schinecker (48) also made it clear in a recent interview with the AWP news agency that he sees great potential in the market. Roche may be much further ahead. In 2018, the company transferred the rights to its fat loss candidate to Eli Lilly for the original $50 million.

Novartis takes a different approach

Rival Novartis, unlike Roche, focuses more on the side effects of obesity, such as cardiovascular disease and cholesterol. “We are following current developments very closely and are ultimately thinking about how we can participate,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan (47) said in an interview with AWP. «However, our approach is to develop treatments where we can offer patients a new or improved approach. We don’t want to just follow the herd.

But safes shouldn’t be stolen so easily. Although the demand is very high, companies cannot meet the demand with their current capacity. Also, resources are not cheap. This means that in some countries only a certain social class can afford weight loss aids. It will likely be years before the first inexpensive generic drugs are introduced to the market. But the first companies are already working on it.

The market is huge

But fighting overweight and obesity is a billion-dollar market. The number of overweight people is predicted to double to four billion by 2035. This means half of humanity suffers from obesity. Experts estimate the market potential to be an exorbitant figure of $150 billion.

Additionally, Novo Nordisk was “surprised” by European consumers’ willingness to pay out of their own pockets. Weight loss drug Wegovy leads to record sales in 2023. In Switzerland, where Wegovy is not (yet) covered by basic health insurance, the low-dose Ozempic is particularly famous. Real diabetes medicine also helps you lose weight.

Due to Wegovy’s high effectiveness (participants lost an average of 15 percent of their body weight in one study lasting more than a year) and a number of celebrity endorsements, the drug is also in high demand in Europe.

Paying from your own wallet is not uncommon

Chief executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen said the company had seen a “very high willingness” among Europeans to pay personally for weight-loss drugs. This is despite the fact that such drugs are usually covered by insurance companies.

“We were surprised at first by the acceptance we saw. We wondered if this was a phenomenon unique to the United States. We tried this in Denmark and Norway, we saw more or less the same thing,” he told the Financial Times. “This is the first time you’ve seen a large population willing to pay out of pocket for a drug.”

In Europe, where Wegovy is not yet widely available in public healthcare systems, 80 percent of sales are paid for personally by consumers. According to the company, more than 90 percent of sales in the U.S. are fully or partially covered by health insurance.

Given the vast market potential and entrepreneurial success in liposuction injections, it can be assumed that Roche and Novartis want to delve deeper into this business. (SDA/wgr)

Source :Blick