China Approves Lilly's Weight-Loss Pill, a First for Oral GLP-1
China has cleared its first GLP-1 pill for weight loss, and it is Eli Lilly's orforglipron. For Lilly, it is a head start in a market where obesity is expected to keep growing.
The scale of demand in China
The country's National Health Commission has said that more than 65% of people could be overweight or obese by 2030. In 2020 the figure was roughly 50%.
J.P. Morgan's head of China healthcare research, Yang Huang, has forecast that yearly sales of GLP-1 weight-management treatments could reach 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) within five to seven years.
Lilly's pill meets a field of injections
Until now, GLP-1 drugs approved in China for weight management came only as injections. The class copies a gut hormone to curb appetite, and in diabetes patients it also helps regulate blood sugar. In the US, Lilly sells this pill as Foundayo.
Lilly's pill will first have to win customers from the company's own weekly obesity injection. Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and the Chinese firm Innovent Biologics sell similar shots.
The approval was announced on Thursday. Lilly said it is working towards a commercial launch, did not comment on pricing and plans to supply authorised healthcare and pharmaceutical institutions. In early trading, Lilly shares were up 1.2% in the US premarket, and Novo's shares in Denmark were up more than 2%.
Novo's answer is still in the queue
Novo is behind Lilly in injections but ahead in pills. Its September figures put oral drugs at about a third of obesity prescriptions in the US, and it holds over 80% of new pill prescriptions there.
In China the company has an oral Wegovy application that was accepted in August. Pills from the domestic makers Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals and Huadong Medicine are also in the race. Asked about when approval might come, Novo declined to comment.
Soren Lontoft Hansen, an analyst at Sydbank, expects Novo's pill to beat Lilly's in China once it is approved, as it has done in other markets. He cites better weight loss. Oral Wegovy, chemically semaglutide, cut body weight by about 14% over 64 weeks in one study. A separate study found about 11% over 72 weeks for Foundayo.
Copies and online limits
Hansen warns that Chinese weight-loss sales face headwinds. Semaglutide copies are expected to launch next year, and regulators heavily restrict online selling.
He also notes that in other countries Novo has held on to its volume and share against generics, although prices across the market have been pushed lower.
Source: The Independent