The ripple effects are widening. Retailers like Walmart, Kroger and Rite Aid say GLP-1 prescriptions are bringing more people into stores, where they make other purchases. Walmart’s chief executive, Doug McMillon, told analysts in August that its executives “expect consumables, and health and wellness, primarily due to the popularity of some GLP-1 drugs, to grow as a percent of total.”
Medtronic’s chief executive, Geoff Martha, said the company had seen a “modest” dip in bariatric surgery, presumably as people opted for weight loss drugs instead. And some analysts believe the drugs could disrupt the American diet.
“If you’re eating fast food every day, you’ll probably continue to eat fast food every day,” James van Geelen of Citrinas Capital Management said on Bloomberg’s “Odd Lots” podcast. “You will just eat a lot less of it.”
Still, there is room for other approaches to fighting obesity. “These drugs are game changers, but with an asterisk,” said David Ludwig, an obesity specialist and pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. (The drugs come with a long list of side effects.) “Even if you can reduce weight across the population with drugs, it’s not going to eliminate the risks of a poor diet.”
Flush with cash, Novo agrees. “We need to be looking at what’s the next thing,” its executive vice president for commercial strategy Camilla Sylvest, told me. In June, the company launched an obesity prevention unit near Copenhagen, to research how to stop the disease before people need to take drugs to lose weight. — Vivienne Walt
Leave a Reply