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Novo Nordisk's CEO says weight-loss pills could grab half the global obesity drug market by 2030 — a bolder forecast than Wall Street's 14–40% estimate. The Danish drugmaker, which already holds 80%+ of new oral obesity prescriptions in the U.S., has five oral treatments in its pipeline. Meanwhile, rival Eli Lilly remains heavily focused on injectables, a dynamic Novo's CEO says could work in its favor.
Novo Nordisk's CEO Mike Doustdar is making a bold bet: weight-loss pills could capture as much as 50% of the global obesity drug market by 2030, far exceeding Wall Street's current projections of 14–40%. Speaking at the company's Capital Markets Day in London, Doustdar noted that competitors' pipelines skew heavily toward injectables — eight injectables for every two pills — positioning Novo favorably if oral treatments take off faster than expected.
The optimism is grounded in early momentum. Oral therapies now account for roughly a third of U.S. obesity prescriptions, with Novo holding over 80% of new oral scripts. Its Wegovy pill generated ~$843 million in first-half sales and is outpacing Lilly's rival Foundayo tablet by more than 100,000 prescriptions per week. Novo also reassured investors that oral Wegovy is patent-protected into the "mid-to-late 2030s" via its SNAC delivery technology — a key buffer against the semaglutide patent cliff expected in the early 2030s.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: If pills do capture half the obesity market, it would reshape the competitive landscape significantly — and Novo, with its early lead in oral GLP-1s and a robust oral pipeline, is positioning itself to benefit most from that shift.
