Season 6, Post 36: Wonder drug, or, just too good to be true?
The hype around Wegovy, Zepbound and other GLP-1 products over the last year or so has, at times, mirrored the hyperbolic expectations pinned on AI. In case you weren’t aware, GLP-1 is an acronym for glucagon-like peptide. The likes of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly (the manufacturers of the two above products) turn these molecules into drugs that can help users manage obesity. Public figures as diverse as Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey have endorsed their revolutionary potential. Walk through New York’s Times Square, as your author did recently, and many rivals are now jumping on the bandwagon too.
First some facts. The world has a major obesity problem. One in ten adults suffers from it. More than 1bn people, including 7% of girls and 9% of boys are now classified as obese. In 2019, it led to around 5m deaths, 20 times as many as malnutrition did. The number of people with obesity has doubled since 1990. By the end of this decade, more than 3bn people globally could be classified as either overweight or obese (all data per the World Health Organisation).
If drugs can go some way to reducing the obesity burden, then this surely must be a good thing. What is even more exciting is that the same drugs may have “far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined”, per a recent publication from a leading team at Yale University. We discussed earlier this year how GLP-1 solutions could help slow the impact of Alzheimer’s Disease, but the more recent studies suggest that some cancers as well as arthritis may be treatable with GLP-1s. The Yale report notes – perhaps somewhat buoyantly – that the drugs could also “slow down the ageing process.”
Type, however, “problems with taking Wegovy” or similar into Google and a litany of concerns are cited. These could include nausea, vomiting, headaches, fatigue and more. Your author caught up earlier this week with a friend who has been using the drug to treat weight loss to hear his (admittedly anecdotal) impressions. Have no doubt, GLP-1s had a marked impact in terms of suppressing hunger and other addictive behaviours such as alcohol and tobacco. It left him with “a feeling of fullness.” On the downside, the drugs did reduce energy levels, impacting desire to go to the gym, for example. A lack of reward mechanism, or pleasure, from small treats (such as a sugary snack or a glass of wine) was also absent. These may be a small price to pay for losing weight. At the same time, given current cost levels of GLP-1s and their relative lack of availability, do not consider them a panacea. The world needs to eat more healthily too.
19 September 2024
The above does not constitute investment advice and is the sole opinion of the author at the time of publication. Heptagon Capital is an investor in Novo Nordisk. The author of this piece has no personal direct investment in the business. Past performance is no guide to future performance and the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise.
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Alex Gunz, Fund Manager
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