Drugmakers are pairing obesity treatments with mobile applications, telehealth platforms, and direct-delivery networks to capture market share as demand for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists surges.
Hanmi Pharmaceutical launched Eppe, South Korea’s first domestically developed glucagon-like peptide-1 obesity drug, koreajoongangdaily reported. Prescriptions for the medication began in earnest on Oct. 29.
The drug attracted 2,464 patients as of Thursday, representing 10.9 percent of individuals who completed obesity treatment consultations through that period, according to data released by a medical appointment booking platform.
Patients who had previously used competing weight-loss medications accounted for 34.5 percent of Eppe patients. Individuals with no prior obesity drug prescriptions recorded on the platform made up the remaining 65.5 percent.
Hanmi Pharmaceutical introduced an application named Eppiday to monitor patient medication use, diet, physical activity, and weight, featuring an option to share collected data with health care providers.
The platform supports rival obesity treatments alongside Eppe, according to the company.
Global advertising firm WPP said that retaining customers has become just as important as winning initial prescriptions, as the weight-loss drug market begins to resemble a subscription business.
GoodRx attributed the early success of Wegovy Pill in the United States in part to the familiarity of the established Wegovy brand name.
Hanmi Pharmaceutical adopted a similar naming strategy with Eppe, which reflects the drug’s active ingredient, efpeglenatide.
Eli Lilly reached an agreement with U.S. telehealth provider Hims & Hers on Nov. 6 to distribute its injectable weight-loss treatment Zepbound and its oral drug Foundayo.
Hims & Hers provides a single service for Eli Lilly medications, handling medical consultations and home delivery. Customers previously had to switch to LillyDirect to buy the company medications after receiving telehealth prescriptions.
Novo Nordisk began offering its Wegovy treatment on the same platform in March.
“The ease and ability for someone on the Hims & Hers platform today to get Lilly medicine is not fully straightforward,” Ilya Yuffa, president of Lilly USA, told Reuters.
Yuffa said that friction in the purchasing experience could increase the likelihood of patient abandonment.
Lars Rebien Sorensen, chairman of Novo Nordisk, said the company must treat patients as consumers and identify purchasing channels, and invited the chief executive of Mars to serve as a board observer.
Some researchers raised concerns regarding the commercialization of powerful prescription medications.
“They’re taking medicine out of medical [sphere] and making it more of something you can purchase on a regular market,” Lindsay Allen of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine told Reuters. “They’re treating it like you can now come purchase a smartphone.”
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