Lilly’s obesity drug off to a strong start, tripling sales in one quarter

The newest entrant to the GLP-1 market, Eli Lilly’s obesity drug Zepbound, had the strongest start to the year, nearly tripling its sales over 4Q23. It would require another tripling to catch rival obesity drug Wegovy from Novo Nordisk.

The meteoric rise of diabetes therapy Ozempic semaglutide from  Novo Nordisk A/S (CSE:NOVO B; NYSE:NVO) made it one of the top-selling drugs of 2023 in any therapeutic category, with annual sales of about $14 billion. The first quarter of this year, however, marked its first drop in quarterly sales — from about $4.5 billion in 4Q23 to $4 billion in 1Q24 — since the drug was approved in late 2017. Even with that $500 million decrease, Ozempic sales were 40% higher in 1Q24 than in 1Q23...