Eli Lilly’s weight-loss remedy Mounjaro turned India’s top-selling drug by worth in October, information confirmed on Friday, overtaking GSK’s extensively used antibiotic Augmentin, as demand surges on the planet’s most populous nation.
The U.S. drugmaker’s widespread injectable remedy raked in 1 billion rupees ($11.38 million) in October, analysis agency Pharmarack mentioned. That outpaced Augmentin gross sales of 800 million rupees final month.
By quantity, Augmentin was manner larger than Mounjaro with 5,784 items offered throughout October, in comparison with simply 85 items sale of Mounjaro, which is offered at a a lot larger worth level.
The information comes as India turns into a key battleground for drugmakers, trying to seize a slice of the burgeoning weight-loss therapy market, which some analysts predict will generate $150 billion a 12 months or extra by the tip of the last decade.
Mounjaro, which helps management blood sugar and sluggish digestion, noticed its gross sales double inside months of its March launch in India, forward of rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, which entered the market in June.
The drug has generated 3.33 billion rupees in income until the tip of October, in keeping with Pharmarack.
“Mounjaro’s consumption in India by quantity was 10 instances greater than Wegovy in October,” Sheetal Sapale, Pharmarack’s Vice President (Industrial), instructed the media on Friday.
Whereas Lilly offered 262,000 Mounjaro items final month, Novo Nordisk offered 26,000 Wegovy items.
Each belong to a category of therapies generally known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which assist sufferers really feel fuller for longer and are more and more used to deal with weight problems and diabetes.
The speedy uptake of those medication displays rising demand for weight-loss remedies in India, the place life-style ailments are on the rise.
Lilly additionally signed a take care of Indian drugmaker Cipla final month to promote Mounjaro underneath a separate model identify.
Globally, Lilly and Novo have seen hovering demand for his or her anti-obesity therapies, prompting provide constraints and pricing scrutiny.
Each firms have struck a take care of the Trump administration to cut back costs of their GLP-1 medication for U.S. authorities applications, aiming to enhance entry amid mounting strain over affordability.
Wegovy’s lively ingredient semaglutide will lose patent safety in India in March 2026 and that has prompted many Indian drugmakers to develop their very own variations of the wildly in-demand drug.
