The Disruptive Power of Weight Loss Drugs Is Being Felt Beyond Pharma

As they do each summer season, publicly traded corporations posted their second-quarter outcomes whereas Americans had been baring their our bodies on the seaside. But this 12 months, the timing was apt. On a number of earnings calls in August, chief executives reassured buyers that the Ozempic revolution had not left them within the mud, and that they may in some way share within the blazing success of recent diabetes and weight reduction medication.

“It puts us in a good position to be a solution for those who are on the drugs,” stated Dan R. Chard, the chief government of Medifast, which makes weight-reduction plan merchandise like shakes and protein bars, including: “They’re looking for guidance.” He advised analysts this even whereas explaining that new-generation medication had helped pummel earnings, down 34.7 p.c 12 months on 12 months.

“We will continue to study this,” Michael Johnson, the chief government of the dietary complement maker Herbalife, advised buyers. “And when we see an opportunity to capitalize on it, we will.”

In concept, that chance — each for making income and for dropping fortunes — may very well be huge not just for the businesses behind these medication but in addition for some in fully totally different industries.

Known as GLP-1 medication, the medicines are already driving large income. Novo Nordisk makes each Ozempic, which has been authorised just for Type 2 diabetes, and its shut relative Wegovy, which has been authorised for weight reduction. They mimic a glucagon-like peptide that regulates urge for food within the mind, leaving folks feeling sated for hours. Together, they helped ship Novo’s earnings rocketing up 32 p.c within the first half of this 12 months, and Novo’s market worth is now bigger than your entire Danish economic system. Eli Lilly’s gross sales surged 28 p.c within the second quarter, thanks to a different diabetes drug, Mounjaro, which the Food and Drug Administration could approve for weight reduction this 12 months.

And the total potential isn’t even clear but. The marketplace for weight reduction medication is big: There are roughly 750 million overweight folks worldwide, together with about 42 p.c of adults within the United States, the place obesity-related sicknesses incur billions of {dollars} in well being care prices annually. But Novo says GLP-1 medication may finally produce other makes use of, like serving to forestall heart problems amongst overweight adults. There are indicators they may deal with habit and even Alzheimer’s, too.

“The market potential is very, very significant,” Novo’s chief monetary officer, Karsten Knudsen, advised me after I visited the corporate in June. “We’re operating in kind of unusual territory.”

Diet corporations are bracing for disruption. For a long time, weight reduction corporations have relied on branded, prepackaged meals and lifestyle applications. Some, like WeightWatchers and Noom, have raced to promote GLP-1 medication themselves, whereas others nonetheless hope their merchandise can survive the Ozempic period. Jenny Craig shut its weight reduction facilities in May after 40 years. And Simply Good Foods, which distributes Atkins weight-reduction plan merchandise like frozen meals and cookies, will market Atkins as “a perfect complement to people thinking about using the drugs,” the corporate’s chief government on the time, Joe Scalzo, advised analysts in June.

The ripple results are widening. Retailers like Walmart, Kroger and Rite Aid say GLP-1 prescriptions are bringing extra folks into shops, the place they make different purchases. Walmart’s chief government, Doug McMillon, advised analysts in August that its executives “expect consumables, and health and wellness, primarily due to the popularity of some GLP-1 drugs, to grow as a percent of total.”

Medtronic’s chief government, Geoff Martha, stated the corporate had seen a “modest” dip in bariatric surgical procedure, presumably as folks opted for weight reduction medication as an alternative. And some analysts consider the medication may disrupt the American weight-reduction plan.

“If you’re eating fast food every day, you’ll probably continue to eat fast food every day,” James van Geelen of Citrinas Capital Management stated on Bloomberg’s “Odd Lots” podcast. “You will just eat a lot less of it.”

Still, there’s room for different approaches to combating weight problems. “These drugs are game changers, but with an asterisk,” stated David Ludwig, an weight problems specialist and pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. (The medication include an extended record of unwanted side effects.) “Even if you can reduce weight across the population with drugs, it’s not going to eliminate the risks of a poor diet.”

Flush with money, Novo agrees. “We need to be looking at what’s the next thing,” its government vice chairman for business technique Camilla Sylvest, advised me. In June, the corporate launched an weight problems prevention unit close to Copenhagen, to analysis easy methods to cease the illness earlier than folks have to take medication to drop some weight. — Vivienne Walt

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The final woman boss

When Emily Weiss stepped down final 12 months because the chief government of Glossier, the skincare and sweetness model she based in 2014, some referred to as it the top of the “girlboss.” That archetype — of media-savvy feminine founders with venture-darling, millennial-focused start-ups — had been propelled by “#Girlboss,” the Nasty Girl founder Sophia Amoruso’s 2014 memoir.

Glossier, with its direct-to-consumer mannequin and voice-y web site, modified the way in which ladies purchase make-up, finally passing a $1 billion valuation. But the model stumbled because it struggled to maneuver into brick-and-mortar retail; confronted criticism from retail workers who alleged a poisonous, racist working setting; and shelved tasks like a make-up line that departed from its dewy, barely-there look.

DealBook spoke to Marisa Meltzer, creator of the upcoming guide “Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier,” about what classes we’d glean from Weiss and the #Girlboss motion.

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Can you contextualize the #Girlboss motion?

It was fairly offensive and diminutive. No one aside from Sophia was calling themselves out as a girlboss. But it was additionally one thing that benefited them as a result of it attracted curiosity. It was a means for them to get press about their companies that wasn’t the standard issues that feminine founders and C.E.O.s typically needed to do, like a vogue unfold.

There was a giant debate on the time over whether or not the press would have lined the scandals at corporations like Outdoor Voices, Man Repeller and Glossier in another way if that they had males on the helm. What do you suppose?

I believe there was a little bit of a thirst for blood. These ladies had been propped up in a means that was form of annoying — I’m certain it was annoying to them, too.

Some of these corporations had actual issues, like being sued over firing pregnant workers. And different corporations had, like Glossier, an accusation of getting a office, largely for his or her retail workers, that wasn’t best. That’s totally different than felony habits.

The actuality is these corporations weren’t the identical. The ladies at their helms weren’t all the identical. And they weren’t making the identical errors. And in addition they didn’t have the identical stage of success.

What occurs to Glossier now?

Glossier appears to have taken the time since Emily stepped all the way down to re-evaluate. They determined to essentially belatedly go into retail. They launched in Sephora final February. The bigger process that they’re attempting to do is make the corporate in higher form for an exit.

Who may purchase them?

An organization like Estée Lauder that owns a variety of boutique manufacturers would make sense. There’s additionally Kering, the style home that owns Gucci, which has been making some seen performs to get extra into the wonder market.

On our radar: The story of Carlos Ghosn

In 2019, whereas going through felony fees of monetary wrongdoing, the previous Nissan government Carlos Ghosn skipped bail and fled Japan in an elaborate plot that concerned a personal jet and a trunk with respiratory holes drilled into it. At the time, DealBook referred to as it “a movie-level caper,” and two tasks — one by the BBC and one other by Netflix — had been fast to painting it on video. But neither did so in addition to a four-part Apple TV+ documentary sequence that was launched final week.

“Wanted: The Curious Case of Carlos Ghosn” is produced by The Wall Street Journal and is predicated on a guide by two of its reporters. With Ghosn’s participation, it tells the thriller-like drama of one of the vital memorable enterprise tales this decade whereas exploring its nuances.

“The series explicitly poses the question of Carlos Ghosn: victim or villain?” The Guardian’s Adrian Horton writes. “With blurred lines, overlapping narratives and convoluted paper trails, it doesn’t land on a simple answer.”

Thanks for studying! We’ll see you on Tuesday.

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