[Young Journalist Sophia Lee] As the oral medication of anti-obesity drug Wegovy from Novo Nordisk is officially released, the tectonic shift of the global anti-obesity drug market is expected. The drug GLP-1 group that used to be in the form of injection appeared to be in tablet form with the significant decrease in price. Therefore an unavoidable head-on collision with competing companies is seen as inevitable.

On January 5th(local time), according to Reuters and CNBC, the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk started selling Wegovy pills in the USA. This is around two weeks later they got the market approval from the American Food and Drug Administration(FDA). 

The price of Wegovy pills has been set from $149 to $299 depending on dosage. Low volume products like 1.5mg and 4mg are sold at $149 per month with the notice that the price of 4mg products will increase after the middle of April. The high volume products like 9mg and 25mg which will be released later on are $299.

The low volume Wegovy pills will be able to be purchased through the online pharmaceuticals platform ‘TrumpRX’ that the Donald Trump administration is pushing forward. The platform will be officially established this month. 

In the market, they consider the price set “unprecedented”. CNBC reported Wegovy pills are the most affordable within the anti-obesity drugs that have been released by now. The GLP-1 group medications like the original Wegovy and Zepbound from Eli Lilly are mostly injection, which have been criticized for the entry barriers due to the high price around $1000 and the discomfort of administration. 

Financial Times(FT) evaluated the release of Wegovy pills as “Novo Nordisk opened the price war in the anti-obesity drug market”. Novo Nordisk led the boom of ‘weight loss medicines’ by the release of Wegovy in 2021, but recently because of Eli Lilly’s push and the spread of duplicated drugs, they have been criticized that their position in the market is shaking. 

Novo Nordisk’s strategy is to get back the upper hand in the GLP-1 group anti-obesity drugs with the oral form of Wegovy. Reuters forecasted this could be the turning point for the recovery of market share that has been taken by competing companies. 

The immediate response of investors appeared. The share of Novo Nordisk ascended by 5% on the day, and Washington Post(WP) reported that the cumulative growth rate after the Wegovy pills have been approved by the FDA on December 22nd last year is around 15%.

The competing company Eli Lilly is also preparing for a tit-to-tat. Lilly is preparing for the release of Zepbound’s follow-up oral anti-obesity drug ‘Orforglipron’, now waiting for FDA approval. 

Earlier in November last year, the Trump Administration announced that there was an agreement to reduce the price of anti-obesity drugs in the USA with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. President Trump pressured global pharmaceutical companies’ drug price reduction using tariffs as a lever, saying “anti-obesity drugs will be supplied to American patients with the standard of ‘most-favored-nation’”. 

The industry is paying attention to the possibility that anti-obesity drugs will be quickly moving on from ‘expensive structure mainly using injection’ to ‘phase of popularization mainly using oral medication’ with the Wegovy pills release acting as a catalyst. 


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