Patients switching to Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill from shots lose more weight in real-world study

Key Points:

• Participants in a study lost an average of 4.1% of their body weight over three months after switching from injectable obesity treatments like Wegovy and Lilly's Zepbound to oral semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic.
• The average weight loss was 4.0 kg (8.8 pounds) from a baseline of 221.6 pounds (100.5 kg), with the proportion of clinically obese participants dropping from 87.1% to 65.5%, and nearly 41% losing at least 5% of their body weight.
• Novo Nordisk's Chief Scientific Officer highlighted that many patients prefer and respond better to the oral pill compared to injectables, supported by data from a 194-patient real-world study presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting.
• Novo has seen a rebound with its oral Wegovy pill, which now accounts for about one-third of US obesity prescriptions, capturing over 80% of new oral prescriptions, helping the company compete with Lilly, the current obesity-drug market leader.
• The Wegovy pill has been launched in multiple countries including the US, UK, Germany, and the UAE, with further market rollouts planned, and Novo's CEO projects weight-loss pills could capture up to half of the global obesity-drug market, potentially worth $100 billion annually by the decade's end.