US weight-loss drug market will expand amid obstacles

Significance Demand for the company's type 2 diabetes treatment, Ozempic, and its higher-dose version, Wegovy, has surged since November when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Wegovy for weight loss. Sales of prescription weight-loss drugs will surge, with Eli Lilly's antidiabetic, Mounjaro, also approved for weight loss and rivals Amgen and Pfizer racing to follow. Impacts Adherence and weight-gain-recurrence rates, said by some physicians to be low and high, respectively, will be key to the drugs' prospects. Bifurcation of the drug class between diabetes and weight loss uses would sustain markets for medical equipment such as insulin pumps. Weight loss drugs will further raise employers' costs for employee health insurance.