Novo Nordisk faces another blow: Musk shares weight loss photo, claims Eli Lilly's weight loss drug is more effective than semaglutide
Elon Musk posted a photo on Christmas, calling himself the Ozempic Santa Claus, and clarified that he is not referring to the drug name Ozempic, but rather Eli Lilly's competitor Mounjaro. He also mentioned that the "high doses" of Ozempic make him fart and burp, stating, "Mounjaro seems to have fewer side effects and is more effective."
Novo Nordisk has once again been surpassed by its fierce competitor Eli Lilly, this time losing the influencer client Elon Musk.
On December 25th, Wednesday, Christmas Day, Musk posted on his social media platform X to celebrate Christmas. He shared a photo of himself dressed as Santa Claus. In the photo, Musk is wearing a Santa outfit, hands on his hips, sporting a white Santa beard, standing in front of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, with gifts piled underneath. Although the classic image of Santa Claus in people's minds features a round belly, Musk's version of Santa does not.
Accompanying the photo, Musk referred to himself as the "Ozempic Santa," with Ozempic being the brand name of Novo Nordisk's star weight loss drug semaglutide injection. Using this term to describe Santa undoubtedly suggests that Musk is implying his slimmed-down version of Santa has benefited from the weight loss effects of semaglutide injections.
However, shortly after, Musk posted to clarify his relationship with semaglutide, stating, "Technically, it's Mounjaro, which is not the same thing as before." Mounjaro is a blockbuster diabetes drug developed by Eli Lilly, which, like semaglutide, is also used as a GLP-1 receptor agonist for weight loss.
In a subsequent post, he explained that the term Ozempic Santa is a generic term, similar to the term "cocaine bear," which refers to a black bear that has ingested illegal substances.
Musk had publicly acknowledged using Ozempic back in 2022. He advocates for the widespread use of GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity. Earlier this month, he posted on X, stating, "For the public, nothing can improve Americans' health, extend life, and enhance quality of life more than making GLP agonists extremely low-cost. Nothing can compare."
This Wednesday, when asked by a netizen why he was taking Mounjaro, Musk proactively compared Mounjaro with Ozempic, indirectly advertising Mounjaro. He replied to the netizen, saying that "high doses" of Ozempic would make him fart and burp like Barney from "The Simpsons," adding, "Mounjaro seems to have fewer side effects and is more effective."
A few days ago, before being "pulled down" by Musk, Novo Nordisk just received bad news that the trial results of its next-generation weight loss drug were below expectations.
Last Friday, Novo Nordisk announced that the Phase III trial results of the REDEFINE project showed that patients receiving subcutaneous injections of the experimental weight loss drug CagriSema lost an average of 22.7% of their body weight after 68 weeks. If the sample size is further expanded to include volunteers who dropped out of the trial, the average weight loss effect drops to 20.4%, both of which are lower than Novo Nordisk's previous expectation of 25%. In addition, the trial showed that only 57% of patients could tolerate the highest dose, indicating that CagriSema may have difficult-to-tolerate side effects.
Novo Nordisk previously stated that CagriSema would effectively address the issue of "weight rebound after discontinuation" and would not bring additional side effects compared to the previous generation weight loss drug Wegovy, making it the most effective weight loss drug to date, expected to be launched in 2026.
If the weight loss percentage of CagriSema is less than 23%, it is roughly comparable to the effect of Eli Lilly's existing weight loss drug Zepbound, and its efficacy may be inferior to Eli Lilly's new generation weight loss drug currently under development.
In June last year, Eli Lilly published a clinical research paper in the New England Journal of Medicine stating that in a Phase II clinical trial, the GCGR/GIPR/GLP-1R triple agonist Retatrutide achieved significant weight loss effects, helping obese patients lose 24.2% of their body weight.
The trial results of CagriSema have raised doubts on Wall Street about Novo Nordisk's prospects of dominating the weight loss drug market. Last Friday, Novo Nordisk's European stock fell more than 20% in one day, marking the largest single-day drop since its listing. Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Zepbound seems to be more effective than Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, and currently there are no strong competitors in the short term.
Previous reports indicated that Eli Lilly now occupies about 40% of the U.S. weight loss drug market. Analysts expect that by the end of 2024, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly will roughly "split the market evenly," and once production capacity catches up, this balance of power may be broken, with Eli Lilly likely to take the lead