Nowadays, people living in big cities no longer have to worry about the possibility of nutritional deficiencies. Instead, the problem of obesity, brought about by overnutrition, became as unwelcome, even unacceptable, as a disease.
There is a huge market for any health care product or drug related to "weight loss" driven by the anxiety of people who are obese or not obese at all.
"Smeiglutide," the most popular weight-loss drug in the past year, has spread rapidly through social media such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu.
Demand for Smeiglutide has exceeded even Novo Nordisk's expectations.
In the first three quarters of 2022, Smeiglutide's sales in China exceeded 1.5 billion yuan, even though Novo Nordisk restricted its off-market supply.
In this era, a new mechanism of "diet drugs", can always capture the heart.
With the popularity of "emiglutide", the capital market on "emiglutide" similar mechanism drug expectations, also gradually climbing.
Some investors even predict that it will be a "super track" similar to PD-1.
"Smiglutide" is popular all over the network, the secret lies in its weight reduction effect can stand the test.
As a GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonist, Smeiglutide stimulates the production of more GLP-1 in the body.
GLP-1 is a protein secreted by human glucagon gene, widely distributed in multiple organs and tissues throughout the body, which can promote the secretion of human insulin and play a role in reducing blood sugar.
Of course, weight loss is not because GLP-1 makes insulin secretion too much and energy expenditure is accelerated, but can suppress the central nervous appetite and delay gastric emptying.
In short, GLP-1 agonists ultimately make people less hungry, so they eat less and lose weight.
Based on a clear mechanism for weight loss, Smeiglutide has shown extremely powerful weight loss effects.
Based on the phase III clinical data, the weight loss in different groups ranged from 10.6% to 18.2% after 68 weeks of administration. During this period, the subjects were given weekly injections of Smeiglutide and no other weight loss measures were required.
What is this concept? If you weigh 70kg, you can lose at least 14kg in a year and a half. On a good day, about 30 pounds.
Based on this data, Smeiglutide was approved by the FDA in June 2021 for chronic weight management. It is precisely because of the super weight reduction effect, "Smiglutide" is highly sought after in China.
Of course, "Smeiglutide" can be popular, essentially because of its "out of the circle".
In nature, "Smiglutide" is a prescription drug, which is only eligible for use by certain groups of people. The specific characteristics are:
Adults who are obese (BMI≥30kg/m2) or overweight (BMI≥27kg/m2) with at least one weight-related comorbidities.
BMI is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared. In terms of overweight, an adult who is 1.7m tall must weigh more than 78KG to get a prescription.
Since most of the audiences of "Smiglutide" are female, the audience size is relatively limited. After all, it is rare for an adult woman to weigh more than 78KG when she is only 1.7m tall.
In fact, even people in the country who are of the right weight cannot currently get a prescription for smeiglutide. The reason is that Spiglutide can only be used as a hypoglycemic drug in the country, and the indication for weight loss has not yet been approved.
But there has always been a group of people who are more anxious about their weight than they are about their health. This factor drives them to search all information related to weight loss all the time, looking for newer, simpler "antidote".
That's how Smiglutide became popular. Marketing banners with slogans like "Lose weight while lying down" have raised the hopes of those who can't keep their mouths shut.
From Weibo to Xiaohongshu, individuals have been sharing their clock-in experiences on social media, encouraging more weight-loss enthusiasts to pull weeds.
They flocked to the hospital's endocrinology and metabolism departments, complaining that they had diabetes and knew better than their doctors about the prescription drugs they needed, called smeiglutide.
In the case of off-label use, "Smeiglutide" has completely changed from a clinical drug to a medical beauty product. This has changed the logic of the commercialization of Smeiglutide completely.
In 2021, combined sales of Novo Nordisk's GLP-1 agonist for diabetes were only 1.786 billion yuan, while SMeclutide's sales were only 293 million yuan.
However, in the consumption circle of 2022, the sales volume of "Smeiglutide" in the first three quarters has reached 1.536 billion yuan. The ceiling of China's diet drug market may be beyond Novo Nordisk's imagination.
But the market for "lying down" weight loss is as competitive as it gets.
Facing the attractive market, domestic enterprises are not absent. At present, including East China Pharmaceutical, Xinda Biological, Hengrui Pharmaceutical, East Sunshine Medicine, Hongyun Huating, Aimei, Ganli Pharmaceutical and many other enterprises into the game, the war is imminent.
Huadong Pharmaceutical and Renhui Biological are the first to take the lead in domestic substitution. At present, both companies have submitted marketing applications for the indications of GLP-1 receptor agonists.
But this is an area where a brief first-mover advantage may not mean much. Competition for GLP-1 agonists for weight reduction indications depends on product compliance and efficacy.
Compliance is reflected in the injection frequency of the product. Simeiglutide is injected only once a week, while Huadong Pharmaceutical's Liraglutide is injected once a day and Renhui Bio's Benarlutide is injected three times a day, comparable to a sewing machine.
One obvious point is that the difference in injection frequency will directly affect the commercialization prospects of the product. In fact, the once-a-week product is not safe either, because Smeiglutide is already available as an oral pill.
The key to the efficacy lies in the product mechanism. The technical competition of GLP-1 receptor agonists is no longer limited to the same dimension competition. Multiple agonists targeting multiple targets are launching dimension reduction attacks.
For example, Lilly's FDA-approved GIP/GLP-1 dual receptor agonist, Tirzepatide, has increased weight loss by more than 20%.
Amgen's AMG133, on the other hand, shows the potential for more combat power, reducing its weight by 14.5% in three months. By contrast, the weight loss effect of "Smeiglutide" was only about 6 percent over the same period, showing a significant difference.
In the long run, only products that combine "compliance with efficacy" will achieve strategic supremacy in the obesity battle. The answer to standing out has long been written, depending only on how the drug companies win on merit.
