Global pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are scrambling to cement their lead in India’s booming obesity drug market before cheaper generic versions hit shelves in March next year.
Novo’s strategy emphasises price cuts and accelerated launches, while Lilly’s products benefited from hitting the market early. Both companies focused on aggressive outreach to doctors, heavier advertising about obesity, tie-ups with clinics, patient incentives and distribution deals with local drug makers, according to doctors, analysts, medical representatives, patients and distributors.
Lilly has even teamed up in India with well-known Bollywood actors in a social media ad campaign about obesity.
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India, projected to have the world’s second-largest overweight or obese population by 2050 in absolute numbers, is becoming a major battleground for obesity drugs. Analysts expect the global market for such drugs to hit US$150 billion a year by the end of this decade.
Although the US remains the largest market for obesity drugs, early sales figures in India show rapid uptake, even though most patients in the world’s most populous nation pay for the medication out-of-pocket.
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“We believe that this market can be more than US$1 billion within two years,” said Shrikant Akolkar, vice-president at research firm Nuvama Institutional Equities.