Adult obesity rate fell from record high—and big pharma is reaping the benefits from mainstream sales of weight-loss drugs like Zepound and Mounjaro

The decline comes as a growing number of Americans turn to GLP-1 drugs to lose weight. Gallup found that the use of these drugs specifically to lose weight (they’re also used to treat diabetes) has more than doubled from February 2024, when it was 5.8%, to 12.4% currently:

• More women (15.2%) are taking the drugs than men (9.7%), which correlates with a slightly larger decline in obesity rates among women.
• Adults in the 50-64 age range who took the survey had the highest usage of GLP-1s for weight loss, at 17%.

The study illustrates how quickly these drugs have made their way into the mainstream—and how valuable they are for drugmakers.

The battle over semaglutide

Eli Lilly reported stellar third-quarter earnings yesterday and raised this year’s revenue estimates from $60 billion–$62 billion to $63 billion–$63.5 billion, crediting the growing adoption of its weight loss drugs Zepound and Mounjaro. The company also announced a direct-to-consumer partnership with Walmart, offering customers single-dose vials of Zepbound for under $500 in its pharmacies.

Meanwhile, other pharma companies are desperately trying to claw back market share of obesity drugs, which is expected to reach $150 billion by 2030.

Bidding war. Novo Nordisk, the Danish creator of GLP-1s Wegovy and Ozempic, made an unsolicited offer to buy the weight loss drug developer Metsera for $9 billion. The offer followed shortly after Metsera struck a deal to sell itself to Novo’s rival, Pfizer, that was worth up to $7.3 billion (which Metsera can still get out of). Metsera is developing new GLP-1s, some of which can be taken less often than those currently on the market.—MM

This report was originally published by Morning Brew.