As the battle for promotion between rivals Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly intensifies, French regulators are reminding the world’s two biggest obesity drug makers of what happens when promotion goes too far.
In Europe, pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to sell prescription drugs directly to patients, but they can run awareness campaigns about the diseases they treat.
But in these cases, the companies appear to have crossed the line, as regulators determined their campaigns amounted to indirect promotion of prescription treatments, in violation of state rules.
First up is Novo. France’s medicines regulator, the National Agency for Health Security (ANSM), took issue with several Novo obesity campaigns across the country and online last year.
This includes a campaign that took place in Paris in 2025, just before the summer, and featured the line “I have decided to act for myself and my health,” which, according to ANSM, was “highlighted in the background by an image depicting overweight people smiling again at the idea of ’taking action.'”
In October, the company posted on social media the slogan, “More effort, less results? Menopause changes things. A gynecologist is here to support you,” along with an image of a woman entering menopause.
A video with the taglines “Changing your perspective is already progress” and “Obesity? Overweight? Visit audeladupoids.fr” was also circulated on social media, the regulator said, “featuring an overweight woman in her 40s who explains to the public how she has decided to take action, including, among other things, discussing the issue with her doctor.”
The regulator said these messages were issued “within the broader context of abuse of the GLP-1 analogue class, which has received media attention and been the subject of numerous communications from health authorities.”
ANSM took issue with the fact that the message focused on medication as a response to obesity, without placing enough emphasis on other approaches such as diet and exercise. Given the high level of public awareness of GLP-1 drugs, the regulator said the campaign was likely to be understood as promoting prescription treatment, even without specific product names.
In France, Wigoby is prescribed as a second-line treatment for obesity, not for people with a low body mass index (BMI) or who simply “need to lose a few more pounds,” as regulators say. Novo was fined 783,838.20 euros ($919,688) for violating public health law because the campaign did not clearly define the target audience for these medicines.
Novo was also hit with a similar promotion related to its other injectable obesity drug, Saxenda, and was fined a separate €1 million ($1.17 million) for those violations.
Lilly was also fined for violating the country’s drug promotion regulations. Last year, just before summer, Lilly promoted a disease awareness campaign through posters in six major French cities – “particularly on the metro, in the press and on social media,” according to French regulators – and described the campaign as “Obesity is a Sick Man’s Problem,” according to comments reported by Le Monde newspaper.
The regulator said that, like Novo, the widespread recognition of these obesity treatments meant the campaign was likely to encourage the public to seek out prescription options, regardless of their weight or BMI.
“This communication campaign therefore tends to encourage the general public to use the products of the Mounjaro series, regardless of weight or body mass index (BMI), by focusing only on drugs indicated for the treatment of obesity, without naming them.”
ANSM fined Lilly 108,766 euros ($127,591) for this violation.
The enforcement action comes amid a new brand battle in the United States between Lilly and Novo.
Just last week, Novo announced a major rebranding change for its semaglutide franchise, dropping the name Libersus in the U.S. and changing it to “Ozempic Pill,” while renaming Ozempic Injectable to “Ozempic Injection.”
Earlier this year, the company updated the branding of its bariatric franchise to “Wegovy Tablets” for the oral version and “Wegovy Injection” for the pen version.
At the same time, Lilly launched in the US its newly approved GLP-1 drug Foundayo, which is based on a different compound, olforglyprone, than the compound used in the company’s obesity and diabetes drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound.
