Photographic illustration of Wegovy’s new injectable prescription weight loss medications, Ozempic, Victoza, and Wegovy semaglutide tablets. It is a prescription drug used with a reduced-calorie diet and physical activity. (Photo by Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
They haven’t started fighting yet, or insert your paraphrase of John Paul Jones here. At the very least, success breeds success. What this means in the weight loss space is that Wegovy, Foundayo, Ozempic and others are the beginning of powerful advances in weight loss technology, not the end.
He talks about the genius of profits. They generate the resources and credit needed to pursue new advances.
Consider retatrutide. THE New York Times describes this Eli Lilly creation as “the most powerful weight loss drug ever developed.” And while it’s “not expected to hit the US market before next year,” the drug’s extraordinary popularity in pre-release form speaks volumes for what lies ahead in weight loss advancements.
This is because consumers are already looking for what is not yet on the market. There is only the “research-only” offer of retatrutide that finds its way to consumers who wish to gain access to the drug before it is legally available. On this development, readers can decide whether to approve or disapprove.
What matters is that in the already feverish demand for retatrutide, we can detect yet another market signal. Specifically, that the weight loss drugs of the future will seemingly outshine everything that came before, thus requiring FDA pre-approval for them.
It recalls the success of Amazon’s Echo devices. Jeff Bezos was said to be excited at the time because the popularity of the device would free up more cash and create more credit (yes, credit is was created) for more product development on Amazon. Progress is expensive, so as mentioned before, success breeds success.
Back to retatrutide, it’s interesting to think about what’s potentially next. As is known in the trade, attitude is the road to obsolescence. Considering retatrutide, if it thrives as expected, the clock will start ticking for Eli Lilly in terms of what’s next.
Investors then reward, meaning retatrutide is released subject to approval, or soon after, investors will want to know what’s next.
Let’s hope that the wishes of the investors will catch the attention of the politicians. Politicians have a tendency to make promises they cannot keep. They promise cheaper health care and “bending the health care cost curve” down. They cannot do such a thing.
The only way to reduce the cost of what improves and saves lives is through fearless investment in a commercial future that is by definition opaque. In other words, the road to cheaper life-enhancing and life-saving drugs is paved with enormous cost and often failure along the way.
Consider this, given the thunderous lines from politicians about “cost curves,” not to mention the drug companies’ whitewashing of “Most Favored Nation” pricing threats. Price controls, like cost curves, make it too expensive for firms to make any kind of progress.
This is why the political class will ideally cheer the advances being made in medicine, while also recognizing what enables progress: the ability of pharmaceutical companies to profit from rare breakthroughs. Without the profits, there will be no investment to make the achievements possible.
Back to retatrutide, for now it is the future of weight loss. Same, let’s hope it’s not this one border of weight loss. It will not be if it is accepted by the legislators that progress, although very expensive, is more than worth it.
