What is Novo Nordisk’s secret weapon to turn the tide against Eli Lilly and win the current market competition for oral GLP-1 obesity drugs? Name recognition.
Jim Hickey, an analyst at Spherix Global Insights, said he studies competition by surveying 50 primary care physicians (PCPs) and 50 endocrinologists in the U.S. and by writing monthly reports on the uptake of new drugs that hit the market earlier this year.
“It’s been interesting to see how strong Novo Nordisk came out of the gate,” Hickey said in an interview with Fierce. “As far as we can see, this is a very strong launch. This is consistent with the data shared by Novo Nordisk. I think the big difference between the two is really due to familiarity. We see the familiarity ratings for Wegovy tablets to be much stronger than those for Foundayo.”
The tablet, which Novo launched in January, has the advantage of sharing a name with the company’s injectable weight-loss drug Wigovy, with both forms derived from the same GLP-1 compound semaglutide.
Launched in April, Lilly’s Foundayo (orforglipron) is an entirely new molecule distinct from the company’s blockbuster injectable GLP-1/GIP product, tirzepatide. In the United States, this dual agonist is known as Zepbound for obesity and Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes. Foundayo, on the other hand, is a single-target GLP-1 agonist like Novo’s Wegovy tablets.
While many analysts have argued that Novo’s early success was due to its first-to-market advantage, Hickey believes familiarity had more to do with it, based on feedback from physicians.
Semaglutide provides a “comfort and knowledge” that doesn’t exist with orforglipron, Hickey said.
According to IQVIA data, there were 159,000 prescriptions for oral Wegovy and 19,879 prescriptions for Foundayo in the most recent weekly reporting period. Wegovy was in its 22nd week on the market, while Foundayo was in its 9th week.
Analysts cautioned, however, that analysis of data using IQVIA’s prescribing trends may be incomplete and misses a significant number of telemedicine referrals for increasingly popular obesity drugs.
On a different note, Novo reported earlier this month that since the Wegovy tablet’s launch on January 5, the tablet has garnered more than 3 million total prescriptions. Novo said at the time that the majority of these scripts were from new patients in the GLP-1 class.
Meanwhile, another observation Spherix made regarding this competition is that PCPs are more likely to prescribe oral Wegovy than endocrinologists. Data from the research intelligence firm also shows that endocrinologists are more likely to have seen representatives of both companies than PCPs.
As he surveys doctors in the future, Hickey is keen to get feedback on how the pills compare in effectiveness and how patients view Wegovy’s limitations. Although Novo’s tablets must be taken on an empty stomach, Lily is keen to stress that there are no food or water restrictions for Foundayo. Hickey also said more data will be available on the number of patients who discontinue GLP-1 or stop taking the injectable drug instead of starting it orally for the first time.
