Pharma firms’ focus on weight-loss drugs could put insulin supply at risk, experts warn
The Access to Medicine Foundation, a Netherlands-based non-profit part-funded by the UK and Dutch governments, warns that the gold rush into GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro is pulling pharmaceutical attention toward lucrative obesity markets and away from insulin. Chief executive Jay Iyer said diabetes affects an estimated 589 million adults worldwide, 81% of them in low- and middle-income countries such as Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan, while many people with type 1 diabetes still cannot obtain basic insulin more than 105 years after it was developed. Companies can charge far more, and earn higher margins, on weight-loss injections and pills than on insulin, and Iyer said any of Sanofi, Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk leaving the insulin market would be disastrous for people with type 1 diabetes and insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes. Novo Nordisk has already announced plans to phase out some older diabetes products, including insulin pens. GLP-1 medicines, first developed to manage type 2 diabetes by regulating blood sugar, slowing digestion and reducing appetite, have been taken by millions in the United States and other wealthy countries since Wegovy launched in 2021, but they are not registered in many poorer countries and remain unaffordable where they are available because of high prices and a lack of equitable pricing. The foundation’s biennial report found that most pipeline medicines in this area target type 2 diabetes, with only 10 of 25 aimed at type 1. Switzerland’s Novartis again topped the group’s global health equity ranking after overtaking the UK’s GSK last time, while AstraZeneca rose to third with access plans for almost all of its late-stage drugs. Nearly two-thirds of cancer medicines are covered by measures to reach poorer countries, and Iyer said that over 20 years of the access-to-medicines index, access has become part of corporate strategy at some firms and is sometimes tied to executive bonuses.
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