Demand for Obesity Drugs Shoots Up in India as Rivals Compete
Lilly's Mounjaro, launched in late March, doubled its sales in June to 87,986 units or 260 million rupees ($3.03 million) compared to May, Pharmarack said. Between March and May, Lilly had sold 81,570 Mounjaro units in India.
Meanwhile, Novo sold 1,788 units of Wegovy in India since its late-June launch with 25.3 million rupees in sales, Pharmarack said.
The incidence of obesity and diabetes is rising in India, the world's most populous country, which also ranks among the worst three globally for high obesity rates, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
The Indian obesity drug market has grown fivefold since 2021 and is valued at 6.28 billion rupees, according to the research firm.
Affordability and willingness to try new drugs for obesity have propelled the growth of the market, Pharmarack's Vice President (Commercial) Sheetal Sapale said.
Wegovy's active ingredient, semaglutide, dominates the market with a two-thirds share in India, while Mounjaro's active ingredient, tirzepatide, has captured 8% of the market, Pharmarack said.
As of June, the semaglutide market in India was valued at 4.12 billion rupees, and tirzepatide at 500 million rupees, the research firm said.
Novo has sold oral versions of semaglutide for diabetes in India since 2022.
Semaglutide will lose patent protection in India in 2026, and generic drugmakers are aiming to produce cheaper versions of Wegovy as India becomes a key battleground for drugmakers seeking to grab a share of the global obesity market.
Novo and Lilly's drugs help control blood sugar and slow digestion, making users feel fuller for longer.
($1 = 85.9200 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Rishika Sadam; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Vijay Kishore)
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Not to mention, half of what you make taking care of sick people goes to overhead. And if you make a mistake, someone could die. The top massage at the Marriott near my home costs $680. Becoming a licensed massage therapist takes as little as 6 months of school. Plus, nobody will call you in the middle of the night, and there's very little risk of anyone dying. When you consider that someone with a folding massage table is making 2-3 times what you make as a primary care physician, I hope you will decide that you really do need — and deserve — a way to help finance your noble practice of caring for the sick. And now that Amazon is selling doctor visits by video for $49, or a text-messaging doctor's visit for $29 , you really do need to offer something that requires a physical visit to your office if you hope to keep the doors unlocked. 4. Your patient can afford you — and her sister can, too. Most people want and expect their insurance to pay for illness but are prepared to pay out-of-pocket for cosmetic work, especially when the procedure costs the equivalent of a trip or two to the hair salon. 5. Offering cosmetic procedures will benefit your patients with hard-to-treat medical problems. For example, botulinum toxin is very well-supported as a treatment for bruxism. However, it is still off-label for that indication and therefore not covered by insurance. So, cosmetic injectors are typically the only providers offering this treatment. The same is true for depression and erectile dysfunction. 6 . Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is the safest of them all. I know, I am biased on this topic: I have developed several PRP-based procedures (ie, Vampire Facelift, O-Shot, P-Shot, Vampire Facial), trained thousands of physicians in over 50 countries, and started a supporting organization. Still, with over 18,000 papers referenced on PubMed regarding PRP, only a handful of serious sequelae are documented. It's an excellent way to get started and is a fabulous example of the overlap between medical and cosmetic care. 7. Your patients would rather see you. If you are a primary care physician who decides to offer cosmetic procedures, individuals outside your practice may come to you for cosmetic work. However, you will still primarily treat your current patients: They want to see you, not the plastic surgeon down the street. Just be well-trained, and these cosmetic offerings will be much safer than many of your other routine medical therapies. 8. Your local plastic surgeon, if they are smart, wants you to do this . Many patients don't consider seeing a plastic surgeon until they've experienced the confidence boost that comes from a few simple cosmetic injections. These noninvasive treatments can allow patients to feel more comfortable exploring aesthetic medicine in an environment that is much more regulated than a "med-spa." Your practice can then refer patients to local plastic surgeons after these initial positive experiences. 9 . You will have fun. During my years as an ER doctor, a bad day could mean the death of a child. As an internist, it might involve delivering a life-altering diagnosis of breast cancer to a woman. But a bad day in your cosmetic injection practice is usually no worse than a patient getting an unsightly bruise. By offering these procedures, you get to see your patients more often when they are healthy and happy — not when they are burdened by chronic and painful conditions. 10. Do NOT buy an expensive laser or any other expensive machine . Until half of your day is filled with cosmetic injection patients, that pricey laser will sit in the corner gathering dust, eating the money in your bank, and serving — primarily — as a table for your coffee cup. The salesperson for the machine thinks you are gullible and not a good businessperson. Do not prove them right. Start with cosmetic injections; you need a bottle, a few syringes, a centrifuge, and a little practice. Take Care of Yourself So You Can Take Care of Others At one time, I was the medical director of a few nursing homes. I would tell people that my 30- and 50-year-old patients financed my joy in caring for my 90-year-old patients. When you consider that the so-called 'core' physicians who first snubbed cosmetic injections now want exclusive rights to them, you may feel a more comfortable with your own ethical dilemma and embrace my first teacher's axiom: If you practice primary care, you must learn cosmetic injections to finance your bad habit of taking care of sick people. You will change lives for the better while having fun.
