By Mariam Sunny
Sept 14 (Reuters) - Eli Lilly on Monday said it has captured more than 30% of new patients in the U.S. market for oral obesity treatments, narrowing the early lead gained by Danish rival Novo Nordisk with its Wegovy pill.
Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said in August the company estimated the Wegovy pill had captured about 90% of the country's oral obesity market, despite competition from Lilly's oral treatment, Foundayo.
Investors are closely tracking demand for oral obesity drugs, which could
expand the weight-loss market by appealing to patients reluctant to use injections and easing some supply challenges associated with injectable therapies.
Novo said in January it expects oral drugs to make up more than a third of GLP-1 weight-loss treatment use by 2030. Analysts expect the overall obesity treatment market to hit over $100 billion annually in the U.S. alone by that year.
Lilly's injectable GLP-1 obesity treatment Zepbound has also seen preference among patients in the U.S. government's Medicare obesity drug pilot launched in July, Lilly Executive Vice President Ilya Yuffa said at the Morgan Stanley healthcare conference in New York.
Yuffa said 60% to 70% of patients enrolled in the program, which allows eligible beneficiaries to obtain weight-loss drugs for a $50 monthly co-pay, are new to the treatments. Medicare is for people aged 65 and older or with disabilities and covers about 66 million people.
Outside the U.S., Lilly also faces new competition in India and Canada, where generic versions of Novo's blockbuster obesity and diabetes treatments — Wegovy and Ozempic — cost as much as 70% less.
But Yuffa said the launches have just made the market larger.
"When the market expands significantly through generic, share declines. But the overall volume, absolute volume, is continuing to grow for Mounjaro in those markets," he added.
Mounjaro is Lilly's brand name for tirzepatide in both the obesity and diabetes segments outside the U.S.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)
