No need for weight-loss drug-makers to spend big on ads to drive sales
Ads for Wegovy have become a regular feature in New York City.
Weight-loss drugs are everywhere these days.
At the Oscars earlier this year, host Jimmy Kimmel worked Ozempic into his opening monologue.
Ads for Wegovy have become a regular feature in New York City and Zepbound, a new weight-loss drug making its US debut any day now, is entering a market where it’s all but guaranteed to become an overnight success.
But the typical TV ads and catchy jingles aren’t what’s behind the frenzy over appetite-suppressing drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Big Pharma, in fact, has hardly had to lift a finger.
Instead, a combination of pop culture, social media, and third-party marketers looking to cash in on the hype have helped turn weight-loss drugs into household brand names that rival Viagra and Prozac.
US prescriptions for Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro surged 300% in just two years, putting the drugs on track to become some of the best-selling of all-time.
It’s not that Lilly and Novo aren’t promoting their drugs at all. From January to late November, Lilly and Novo have spent on US commercials for Ozempic and Mounjaro, diabetes drugs that have become popular for weight loss.
But together they account for just 3.7% of the whopping $5.8bn (€5.3bn) pharmaceutical companies have spent on TV ads overall in the US this year.
Wegovy, Novo’s weight-loss drug, hasn’t even yet had its TV debut in the US, according to iSpot.tv.
The ads that have run for Ozempic and Mounjaro describe the drugs as medical interventions for people suffering from diabetes — not a miracle diet drug that can help anyone get thin.
Pharmaceutical companies must follow strict rules when it comes to direct-to-consumer advertising.
All of the new weight-loss drugs are part of a class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists that mimic the effects of eating food.
They can be life-changing for patients with obesity and diabetes, but often come with some unwanted side-effects like nausea and vomiting.
And drug-makers are prohibited, for example, from marketing products for unapproved uses or overstating a drug's benefits.
Those rules, though, haven’t stopped third-parties from fueling the diet drug hype.
“None of these new weight-loss drugs are being marketed responsibly,” said Joel Lexchin, an associate professor of family and community medicine at University of Toronto.
Ozempic and Mounjaro, for example, are only approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for diabetes, though doctors are free to prescribe them for what’s known as off-label use.
