The Race to Market: Transforming India's Weight Loss Drug Landscape

Even though GLP-1 drugs have helped nearly 20 million people shed weight across the world since 2021, Indians had to wait until 2025 to get in on the action legally.

To be fair, the country wasn’t entirely in the dark. Semaglutide—the molecule behind pharma giant Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy—was already available for diabetes treatment. But this March, Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro (which uses a different molecule, tirzepatide) entered the market. In July, Wegovy arrived. And suddenly, India went from “we know GLP-1” to “we want the skinny shot”.

Since then, the GLP-1 market in India—across diabetes and weight loss—has grown from Rs 531 crore to Rs 628 crore. And now, depending on the vantage point, things are about to get much bigger. And much cheaper.

And naturally, pretty much every major Pharma major wants in on the action.

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