Eli Lilly’s best play for Foundayo is to bring it overseas, a more price-sensitive market where the pharma can more readily outcompete Novo Nordisk “given the high margins of a small-molecule therapy,” Truist analyst Srikripa Devarakonda told BioSpace.
Eli Lilly has launched its weight loss pill Foundayo in the U.K., a move that analysts told BioSpace will allow the pharma to better compete in the oral obesity market against Danish rival Novo Nordisk.
The drug will initially be only available through private prescriptions, though Lilly is currently working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), according to British news outlet The Guardian. The NICE is an executive body that helps determine which medicines are carried by England’s public health service.
BioSpace has reached out to Lilly for more details regarding the launch.
The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved Foundayo earlier this month, allowing its use in adults with obesity or who are overweight and who have at least one weight-related comorbidity. The drug is also indicated for type 2 diabetes. In the U.S., Foundayo was approved in April—a decision that kicked off the next stage of the obesity rivalry between Lilly and Novo, this time in the oral arena.
Now, that face-off has come to the U.K., where Novo has a few months head start. The MHRA cleared the Danish pharma’s Wegovy pill in June, marking the first oral weight loss drug to cross the regulatory finish line in the country.
Still, the U.K.—and the wider international market—is Lilly’s for the taking, Srikripa Devarakonda, vice president of Biotechnology Equity Research at Truist Securities, told BioSpace earlier this month. Outside of the U.S. (OUS), “we are more bullish on the prospects for Foundayo,” she said.
Lilly’s advantage, Devarakonda explained, is the relative ease of manufacturing Foundayo, a small-molecule drug, versus oral Wegovy’s peptide profile, opening up the possibility of better margins. “We think that OUS the markets are more price-sensitive and that Lilly will be able to better compete with oral Wegovy on price points given the high margins of a small-molecule therapy in order to secure favorable volume growth,” she said.
With a few months’ head start, Novo has taken an early lead over Lilly in the oral obesity race, reaching over 3,000 patients in its first week following the January launch of its Wegovy pill and bringing in DKK 3.22 billion ($496 million) in the second quarter. Foundayo, meanwhile, hit $98 million in Q2, its first quarter on the market.
