Drug Development | Eating Disorders and Obesity

Over the past five years, the FDA has approved four new anti-obesity drugs, which go by the names Belviq, Qsymia, Contrave and, of course, Saxenda. Figure 1 looks at the total global sales for these compounds in 2016. The total global sales of Saxenda in 2016 was $234.45 million, over 6x greater than the total sales of the other three drugs combined. Moreover, sales are expected to climb to over $1.8 billion by 2021. [2] But why is Saxenda so successful? Some of Saxenda’s success is attributed to the fact that it contains the same GLP-1 ingredient as Novo Nordisk’s popular diabetes drug Victoza, meaning physicians are more comfortable with Saxenda as they have been prescribing Victoza for years. The greater trust and physician support built by Victoza is thought to have helped pave the way for robust Saxenda prescription and sale rates.