Oral weight-loss drugs could make up a third or more of the overall GLP-1 market by 2030, a larger percentage than originally anticipated, a Novo Nordisk executive says.
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"In our first assumption, injectables dominated the market and pills played a smaller role," Ludovic Helfgott, Novo Nordisk's executive vice president for product and portfolio strategy, told Reuters on the sidelines of the JP Morgan Healthcare conference.
"We believe that the pill could actually represent up to a third-plus of that market overall as we go," he added.
Helfgott said Novo's updated view reflects a better understanding of patient behaviour in what he described as an increasingly consumer-driven obesity market, where many patients pay out of pocket.
The company believes its newly launched oral version of Wegovy can expand treatment to groups that have so far been underrepresented in GLP-1 use, including men and younger patients.
He said some potential users of the new pill it launched last week do not fully recognise obesity as a disease or are "in denial", arguing an oral option "opens categories of population" that have been harder to reach with injectables.
The reassessment comes as analysts debate the long-term role of oral GLP-1s.
TD Cowen analysts in 2025 estimated the GLP-1 pills will account for a percentage share of the global obesity drug market in the mid-teens by 2030, which could reach $US150 billion ($A224 billion) by then.
Australian Associated Press
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