Daybreak - Ozempic sparked the weight-loss drug trend. Mounjaro is leading it in India

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Six months after launch, Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro is already India’s second-biggest pharma brand, ahead of antacid Pan and just behind antibiotic Augmentin. Days later, Eli Lilly announced a $1 billion investment and a new Hyderabad hub.The timing is no accident: India has one of the world’s largest obese and diabetic populations, Ozempic’s patent expires in 2026, and local pharma giants are gearing up with cheap GLP-1 generics.In this episode of Daybreak, host Rachel Varghese unpacks how this landscape presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Eli Lilly.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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This week, just six months after its launch in March 2025, weight loss drug Monjaro became the second largest brand in the Indian pharmaceutical market. Famarack, a biotech company, reported that Monjaro recorded a revenue of rupees 80 crore, coming second only to Glaxo-Smithcline's antibiotic augmentin. In fact, it even outpaced a popular ant-acid pan. Just days after, Eli Lilly, the company that owns Mojaro, announced a $1 billion investment and its intentions to launch a facility in Hyderabad.

Eli Lilly's new manufacturing and quality hub in Hyderabad will manage and coordinate its contract manufacturing operations across India. And hiring efforts for engineers, chemists, scientists, quality specialists and managerial talent to staff the facility is beginning right away. To give you a bit of a recap, or is that you. Zemping and Monjarro are two blockbuster drugs that were initially devised as diabetes treatments. But ever since the diabetes drugs gained popularity for its weight loss properties, markets across the world cannot get enough.

And that includes India. Ozempic was especially made popular as a Hollywood staple, touted by the likes of Oprah and Elon Musk. And consequently, black and grey markets for these drugs began popping up in India. You could legally procure the drugs with a prescription through import platforms, or get it entirely illegally through shady providers. We even did an episode on daybreak on how easy it was to procure Rosempic here. I'll add the link to the show notes in case you want to check it out. The drug became widely available legally in India only this year.

Just to clarify, this is the injectable version of GLP1 or glucagon like peptide 1, the drug that makes a medication effective. The oral version, on the other hand, has been available in India since 2022. The most popular of them is Rebelsis, also by Novo-Nodysk, the company that's behind. behind Ossempeg. This legalization is of course what triggered the launch of Moongjaro and Novo-Nodisks V-Govie, another popular weight loss drug in India. Ever since, the market in India for this particular category of weight loss drugs or GLP1 drugs ballooned by almost 100 crore rupees. Now it stands at a whopping rupee 600 crore plus opportunity. Which is why Eli Lilly's sizable investment

makes total sense at first. Firstly, it's an investment that will benefit multiple key players in Indian pharma. This, in course, includes domestic contract manufacturing organizations or CMOs, raw material suppliers, and technology partners. Secondly, it allows Eli Lilly to stay closer to one of the biggest markets for its product. India currently has the third largest obese population and the second most diabetic population in the world. Maintaining a solid presence here will also allow the company to navigate regulatory bureaucracy.

But this entry is also marked by the looming expiration of Ozempic's patent in 2006. All the Indian pharma companies are already lining up to reproduce their own versions of weight loss drugs once that happens. To put that in perspective, on a monthly basis, Moncharo starts at a price of rupees 14,000. And as a Ken reporter Sudezhena Re covered in a story earlier, the genetics wave can pull down the cost of GLP1 drugs to as little as rupees 3,000 to start with. Now, Eli Lilly does plan on slashing costs. But as of yet, it's unclear by how much. So, for Eli Lilly, this rather expensive move could mean strategic genius, allowing it to gain a foothold in a major market before its own patent for Mojaro expires in 2030. Or, it could also backfire entirely.

Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Richard Verghis, and every day of the week, my co-host, Niktha Sharma and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday, the 10th of October. One thing Moongaro has going for it with the upcoming wave of, of GLP1 generics is that it is actually based on a different peptide than Ozmpic semaglutide. Okay, quick science lesson so we're all on the same page about how exactly Moongjaro is different from the other weight loss drugs that are set to flood the market. Here is what we need to understand first.

Most of these weight loss drugs try to imitate or mimic GLP1, which is basically short for glucargon like peptide 1. It's a naturally occurring hormone that regulates blood sugar levels and appetite. Now, some of these weight loss drugs are made of semi-glotide. It is a synthetic molecule that mimics the functions of JLP1, but ensures relatively more long-term effects. It reduces appetite, slows digestion, and maintains insulin and glucagon levels in the body, hence effectually triggering weight loss. Semaglutide is what Ozempic is based on, and what Indian pharma companies like Dr. Reddy's,

Sunfarmar and others are set to recreate. Monjaro, on the other hand, is based on terseipatide. Tersipatide is slightly different from semaglotide. Let me explain how. It is also synthetic, but it takes a lot of. basically works by imitating two naturally occurring hormones in the body, GIP or glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, and GLP 1. Together, these two help regulate blood sugar levels, boost insulin response and curb appetite.

This happens because it slows down how quickly the stomach empties, which means people feel full for longer and that reduces their overall calorie intake and limits how much fat the body stores. And some studies like JAMA internal medicines show that people who use tersipatite lost more weight than those who took semaglotide. And now back to Eli Lilly's India bet. One possible way for it to position itself at a premium and against the generics that will flood the market soon is tersepitide.

Also, the patent for terseptide will only expire in 2030, which gives Eli Lilly some more time. It also has oral variants that inherently do better than injectables. As you can guess, a lot of people aren't very thrilled about stabbing themselves with a needle on a regular basis. Eli Lilly also has her phoglipron, a semi-glotide pill which isn't available in India yet, but is still available for import. They are also cheaper and easier to produce. So together, these two put Eli Lilly in a position to create a portfolio of weight

loss products. This portfolio is also set to include other medications that addresses the common side effects that come with GLP1 drugs. In case you weren't aware, these drugs have a slew of side effects that includes nausea, vomiting, pancreatitis and muscle mass loss, among others. Eli Lilly, meanwhile, is conducting studies to show how the effect of these drugs go beyond just weight loss. For example, in preventing heart attacks and strokes. Another study from this July showed how adults were typed to diabetes and obesity using GLP1 drugs displayed lower risks of dementia as well.

But even with a compelling portfolio and a billion dollars in hand, manufacturing in India comes with its own set of complications. More on this in the next segment. Now, as we mentioned earlier, the opportunity for diabetes and weight loss drugs in India is tremendous. In fact, it's a need at this point. A Lancet report last year revealed that approximately 8 crore individuals in India are classified as obese. These numbers put India third after the US and China in the list of top 10 countries with the highest number of obese individuals. As for diabetes, well, the numbers are more sobering.

India comes second, again behind China. Another Lancet study from last year pegged the number of diabetes patients upwards of 20 crore. In fact, every one in four people in the world with diabetes is from India. Now you can see why the government of India is also incentivizing the production of GLP1 drugs here. Basically, under the PLI scheme, Indian companies and subsidiaries of MNC's manufacturing in India can avail these incentives. In fact, Arunus Chavla, the Secretary of Department of Pharmaceuticals, told Reuters that several companies that are producing the semagloti generics have already applied to be a part of the scheme. They are also going to be considered for the upcoming incentive scheme if they've labeled their GLP1 drugs use case as anti-diabetic. in their application. But manufacturing peptides like semaglutide and terseipatite is no small feat.

In fact, the Ken reporter Soudeshna Ray, who I mentioned earlier, spoke to several experts who explained the complexities of manufacturing. She writes, and I'm quoting here, building production capacity for such complex compounds takes time. Ensuring purity, consistency, and scale is less business as usual, more a feat of biological engineering. In fact, for the last nine years, India has been purchasing 70 to 80% of all active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are basically biochemical materials that make medications work, from China. So, building out a whole framework that allows Eli Lilly to produce GLP1 products is going to take time and money.

Infrastructurally, it would require equipment and environments that consistently have to be kept sterile and at very specific temperatures to make sure the chemicals stay stable. That is obviously going to be an expensive endeavor in a tropical country. like India. And it will also have to build up an entire body of trained and skilled workers as well. Because regulatory requirements for pharma, especially in India, is no joke. So to make sure all the products manufactured meet quality and safety standards consistently, a trained and skilled workforce is a necessity. Additionally, for all the new products Helai Lili is developing, it will have to go through rigorous clinical trials and testing to demonstrate efficacy and safety for use.

Patient and doctor's skepticism towards new drugs, especially those with well-documented side effects like GLP1 drugs, will only increase as use and awareness grow together. But as we mentioned earlier, Eli Lilly is already gearing up for this with the new drugs it is developing. Now, with its longer patent protection, years of experience and deep pockets, Eli Lilly does have an edge in the GLP1 gold rush. And as long as it can consistently set itself apart from all the cheaper, newer players joining the game, the pharma giant could establish itself in India as a market leader in diabetes and weight loss treatment. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken India's first subscriber-focused business news platform.

What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Rachel Varghees and edited by Rajiv Sien.