Ozempic Wars | The Next Injection | 2

It's 11/08/2023 at Eli Lilly's headquarters in Indianapolis. David Ricks, Eli Lilly's CEO, is speaking with reporters. Ricks smiles. He's here to make an announcement he thinks will finally give Eli Lilly the upper hand against Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk. As of this morning, the FDA has given its approval for Zepbound. Zepbound is Eli Lilly's once weekly weight management drug, and this approval means the company can officially enter the GLP one weight loss battle. Novo Nordisk has had a more than two year head start with their GLP one weight loss drug Wegovy, but ZepBound could change the game for Lilly. Ricks continues. We know there's a large group of Americans waiting for answers and ZepBound has the highest efficacy we've seen in an approved drug so far. Did you catch that? Studies show that ZepBound is actually more effective than Wegovy for weight loss. Later studies confirmed that patients lost around 20% of their body weight on Zepbound compared to around 13% on Wegovy. That might seem like a small difference, but this 7% could super charge Eli Lilly's position in the market. Ricks goes on to explain that ZepBound doesn't just mimic the GLP one hormone like Wegovy's semaglutide does. ZepBound's active ingredient, tirzepatide, also mimics an insulin hormone called GIP, which not only helps curb your appetite, but is believed to help the body process sugar and fat more efficiently as well. This dual pronged approach gives Zepbound the edge in weight loss. Journalists start peppering Ricks with questions. He smiles knowing that Zepbound is about to own the GLP one market. That day, Eli Lilly's stock hits an all time high. Over at Novo Nordisk, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jurgensen is in his office when the phone rings. It's a journalist who's been covering the company over the years. He tells Jorgensen what Ricks told reporters. Jorgensen nods. He's been dreading this moment for months. He's been tracking how well Zepbound has been doing in clinical trials, and Eli Lilly's pricing it at around $1,000 a month, which makes it about $300 cheaper than Wegovy. Jorgensen turns on the news, and a moment later, he watches as an anchor breaks the Zepbound announcement. Suddenly, his office feels stuffy. Between the semaglutide shortage, the compounding pharmacies, and now Zepbound, Jurgensen knows it's just a matter of time before Novo Nordisk's stock takes a big hit. From Wondery, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. When pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk first started developing GLP one drugs in the nineteen eighties, they thought they had a game changing diabetes treatment on their hands. But they soon realized they could change even more lives and perhaps reshape their company's future by using semaglutide for weight loss as well. As demand for semaglutide exploded in the early twenty twenties, Novo Nordisk became the most valuable corporation in all of Europe. But their main competitor, American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, was right behind them, developing their own GLP one drug …