JPM's annual healthcare conference: Here's what's next for GLP-1s and the weight loss market
The obesity drug market remains a focus for investors and, of course, was one of the most talked-about topics at the annual JPMorgan healthcare conference in San Francisco this week.
For example, market leader Novo Nordisk (NVO) is already thinking about the next step for Wegovy, its wildly successful obesity drug.
CEO Lars Jørgensen told investors that the company is working on an early-stage portfolio of candidates to address the variability in the market — that includes different dosages and alternate delivery methods to the current injectable option.
"We also have a broad and deep early pipeline that we've not disclosed yet. I think this is such a huge addressable market that there'll be space for different types of products, different administrations, and probably also different efficacy levels," Jørgensen said.
Jørgensen said this previously undisclosed information will be discussed in more detail at the company's investor day in March.
GLP-1s are the dominant treatment for the new obesity market, led by Novo's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's (LLY) newly approved Zepbound. Investors are waiting to see how the companies compete with each other, and others, for market share.
GLP-1s are named for the hormone they mimic in the body that helps to help slow digestion and increase insulin production. They rose to popularity last year — fueled by celebrity interest in the record levels of weight loss achieved by the diabetes drugs Ozempic, from Novo, and Mounjaro, from Lilly. Both products have the same key ingredient as their counterpart obesity drug, semaglutide in Novo's drugs and tirzepatide in Lilly's.
But there are other formulations being worked on by other companies — all rushing in to get a piece of what is projected to be a $100 billion or more market by the end of the decade that will touch, potentially, half of the world's population.
The strategies vary from finding an oral option to searching for different disease that could benefit from the treatment. Novo already created a stir around the possibilities with a study late last year that showed Wegovy could help reduce the risk of serious heart problems.
The GLP-1 rush
Pfizer (PFE) has launched an oral GLP-1 program. Roche (RHHBY) re-entered the market after a decade by acquiring obesity drug developer Carmot. Amgen (AMGN) is working on an oral option as well as an injectable, which are part of the broader GLP-1 space.
Amgen CEO Robert Bradway said the company has "about a half dozen or so other medicines in a preclinical state that we're excited about in the obesity area.”
Merck (MRK), meanwhile, is testing a GLP-1 for potential liver benefits.
Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO Teresa Graham told Yahoo Finance the pipeline the company gained from Carmot offers potential beyond the obesity market.
"In the next couple of years we expect something like 4 billion people around the world to be obese ... I think clearly there's going to be opportunity for multiple players to be in this space," Graham said.
Others, like AstraZeneca (AZN), are pursuing a "cocktail" approach. AstraZeneca is pairing a GLP-1 it is licensing from China's Eccogene with its blockbuster Farxiga, a diabetes drug that also has benefits for heart failure and kidney disease.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told reporters that the market is currently a duopoly, but there will be "fierce competition as everybody in existence is going after this market."
Bourla sees obesity as a place where his company can play and win with its current pipeline, but is also looking for early-stage assets for acquisition and for licensing.
"I don't expect we are going and buying a Phase 3 asset on obesity that will be at the multibillion dollars [level]," Bourla said, noting the company needs to reduce debt after its $43 billion Seagen acquisition to boost its oncology pipeline.
Still, Pfizer sees opportunity in the oral space, which is predicted to be one-third of the projected $100 billion-plus market by the end of the decade. Bourla added that Pfizer could capture one-third of the oral market.
Not all large cap players are joining in. Gilead (GILD) and Sanofi (SNY), for example, are staying away. Sanofi has a GLP-1 diabetes drug, Lyxumia, which was approved in 2016, but it had joined other big pharma companies which abandoned the obesity market back in 2008.
CEO Paul Hudson told reporters this week he isn't going to get back in, and isn't pursuing this first wave of interest.
"You can't go back and close six, seven years of work that's been done on these studies and to try to catch up — even though there's a lot of appetite for it," Hudson said.
Lilly's CEO David Ricks said pursuing different methods and finding additional benefits will be the 2024 GLP-1 story for most companies.
"Next year there's more pivotal readouts on serious disease. We've got heart disease and sleep apnea coming. I'm sure Novo has their own list. For the next few years, that's how this will go. I think those proof points will keep stacking up, consumer demand will keep growing," Ricks said.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBMs, and health policy and politics. Follow Anjalee on all social media platforms @AnjKhem.
