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Investors are souring on the obesity drug field, which was once heralded as the biggest pharmaceutical market of all time. Even as Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy continue to rake in billions of dollars each quarter, there has been a string of recent clinical misses for the next generation of obesity drugs, and that’s prompted some soul-searching among investors. Novo’s CagriSema , Lilly’s oral orforglipron , and most recently, Viking Therapeutics’ candidate have reported results that disappointed investors, who reacted quickly and sharply . Their stock prices are all down drastically since the beginning of 2025, with Novo $NVO and Viking $VKTX down about 35% and Lilly $LLY down about 8%. It’s no surprise, then, that some are moving on from the obesity drug craze of the past few years, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman. Investors are questioning what’s next and how oral medicines fit into the market, he said. “Public investor opinion is evident from market caps,” Stifel banker Tim Opler said in an email. But public investor interest “doesn’t seem to be waning.” The initial success of GLP-1s made Novo the most valuable European company at one point and catapulted Eli Lilly’s market cap close to becoming the first $1 trillion pharmaceutical company. The GLP-1 mechanism has taken the industry by storm, with some projecting the market could be as big as $150 billion by 2035 , and follow-on competitors have appeared in droves. Stifel is tracking 157 obesity assets currently in clinical development. There have been dozens of high-dollar licensing deals in the past two years in a field that was ghosted by nearly every large pharma company. Yet concerns persist. “We are not optimistic about the prospects for many pipeline projects in today’s emerging obesity market,” Stifel bankers wrote in a July report . “This is because (1) Lilly has a dominant portfolio and (2) semaglutide, a very good drug, will be generic in roughly five years. But the good news is that many opportunities remain to upend the market with new approaches.” Meanwhile, private funding for obesity drug developers has plateaued. There were two high-profile launches early this year: Verdiva Bio’s $411 million debut and Versant’s Helicore Biopharma breaking cover with $65 million . But there was only one private fundraise in the second quarter, signifying a “lull in obesity financings,” according to Oppenheimer bankers. It was a $33 million round that went to a Bob Langer-affiliated startup called Syntis Bio . There are “so many bets on the table right now,” Opler said, and so the bar is “really high” for new entrants. His team said obesity biotechs brought in $979 million in venture funding last year, up from $638 million in 2021, the year that Wegovy was first approved. Third Rock Ventures is intrigued by the space, according to partner Jeffrey Tong, and it has supported companies like Septerna that have gone on to add obesity drugs to their pipelines and forge partnerships with obesity leaders like Novo. But the biotech incubator has yet to form an obesity-focused startup. “As we think about company creation, we have to ask ourselves the question, ‘What does the world need five years, 10 years from now?’” Tong said in an interview. If Third Rock were to build an obesity biotech, it would have to offer a clear improvement on Zepbound and Wegovy. This means medicines that are not only effective, but also tolerable, convenient, “compatible with everyday life” and chronic care, muscle-sparing and broadly scalable, Tong said. Deep Apple Therapeutics CEO Spiros Liras also believes that durability and tolerability are key focal points of next-gen medicines. “The differentiation between 23% and 21% [weight loss], for me, is meaningless at this point of time,” Liras said Thursday. Deep Apple is working on various drugs for obesity, including an MC4R agonist. At least one of its obesity assets is slated to enter the clinic next year, he said. Some companies like Omega Funds-backed Ousia Pharma are still investing in obesity but keeping quiet about their plans. “We’re being quite timid or discreet, if you will, just because we want to wrap up some pretty interesting new experiments of which we’ve already seen very good data before we disclose IP and all that,” Omega founder Otello Stampacchia said last month . “People can leapfrog quite quickly, particularly with small molecules and so on.”

Bagsværd, Denmark, 20 August 2025 – Novo Nordisk today announced new data showing the cardiovascular protective benefits of Wegovy ® and Ozempic ® will be presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2025 from 29 August to 1 September in Madrid, Spain. New data will also include perspectives on the role of inflammation in a condition called atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). “For people living with diabetes and obesity, heart disease is one of the biggest threats that could change a person’s life in an instant. Semaglutide is proven to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events by 20-26% 1 , meaning fewer hospitalisations, heart attacks, stroke and deaths,” said Ludovic Helfgott, executive vice president and head of Product & Portfolio Strategy at Novo Nordisk. The key role of cardiovascular inflammation in ASCVD will be discussed in a Novo Nordisk symposium on Saturday, 30 August. ASCVD is a condition where blood vessels that carry blood to your heart cut off the blood flow to other parts of your body, making those vessels stiff and narrow. Additionally, a range of real-world evidence is being presented, providing a thorough analysis of the impact of inflammation in cardiovascular disease on mortality and major cardiovascular events in people with ASCVD. Real-world evidence is data from everyday healthcare settings that show how treatments work in real life, beyond controlled clinical trials. “At the ESC congress, we are presenting new data substantiating the unique range of benefits semaglutide has on people with heart and kidney disease, as demonstrated in both clinical trials and in the real world,” Ludovic Helfgott said. “Semaglutide is unrivalled in the GLP-1 class with its proven reduction in heart attack, stroke, kidney complications and cardiovascular death.” Key Novo Nordisk data at the ESC congress 2025 include: Scientific Sessions: Poster and oral presentations: Ozempic ® (once-weekly semaglutide 1.0 mg) Rybelsus ® (once-daily oral semaglutide) Wegovy ® (once-weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg) Cardiovascular inflammation General obesity If you have any questions about the data or want more information, reach out to globalmedia@novonordisk.com . About semaglutide Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) that mimics the effects of the naturally occurring hormone GLP-1. It has been tested in several robust clinical development programmes and outcomes studies in cardiometabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, liver disease and other related cardiometabolic diseases 1-8 . Semaglutide is marketed under the brand names Wegovy ® (once-weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg injection), Ozempic ® (once-weekly semaglutide 1.0 mg injection), and Rybelsus ® (once-daily oral semaglutide 14 mg) 6-8 . Novo Nordisk is a leading global healthcare company founded in 1923 and headquartered in Denmark. Our purpose is to drive change to defeat serious chronic diseases built upon our heritage in diabetes. We do so by pioneering scientific breakthroughs, expanding access to our medicines, and working to prevent and ultimately cure disease. Novo Nordisk employs about 78,400 people in 80 countries and markets its products in around 170 countries. For more information, visit novonordisk.com , Facebook , Instagram , X , LinkedIn and YouTube . Contacts for further information _______________________ References 1.      Marso SP, Bain SC, Consoli A , et al. Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes. N Engl J Med . 2016;375:1834-1844. 2.      Perkovic V, Tuttle KR, Rossing P , et al. Effects of Semaglutide on Chronic Kidney Disease in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes. N Engl J Med . 2024;391:109-121. 3.      Lincoff AM, Brown-Frandsen K, Colhoun HM , et al. Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Obesity without Diabetes. N Engl J Med . 2023;389:2221-2232. 4.      Pratley RE, Aroda VR, Lingvay I , et al. Semaglutide versus dulaglutide once weekly in patients with type 2 diabetes (SUSTAIN 7): a randomised, open-label, phase 3b trial. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol . 2018;6:275-286. 5.      McGuire DK, Marx N, Mulvagh SL , et al. Oral Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in High-Risk Type 2 Diabetes. N Engl J Med . 2025;392:2001-2012. 6.      Ozempic ® (once-weekly semaglutide): Summary of Product Characteristics. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/ozempic . Last accessed: August 2025. 7.      Wegovy ® (semaglutide injection 2.4 mg): Summary of Product Characteristics. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/wegovy . Last accessed: August 2025. 8.      Rybelsus ® (once-daily oral semaglutide): Summary of Product Characteristics. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/rybelsus . Last accessed: August 2025.