Being first to market with a drug might be essential. Eli Lilly is proving that being second however higher may also pay. Zepbound, the American agency’s weight-loss jab, was authorised in its house nation in November 2023, greater than two years after Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, a Danish rival. But in 2024 Zepbound yielded $4.9bn in income, greater than half of Wegovy’s $8.2bn. On Might seventh Novo lower its gross sales forecast for 2025, citing “lower-than-planned” development in weight-loss medication. S&P World, a financial-data agency, expects gross sales of Lilly’s weight problems medication to overhaul Novo’s by 2027 (see chart 1).
