← Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
The Rise of Weight Loss Drugs: How They're Changing Bodies, Health, and Industry | Behind the Numbers
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- [00:01]
Marcus
In marketing, everything must work seamlessly or efficiency, speed and ROI all suffer. That's why Quad is obsessed. Obsessed, I tell you. Maybe too much with making sure your marketing machine runs smoothly with less friction and smarter integration. Better marketing is built on Quad. See how better gets done@quad.com BuildBetter hey gang. It's Monday, July 14th. Rajeev, Beth and listeners, welcome to behind the numbers. And welcome you're emarketer video podcast made possible by Quad. I'm Marcus and joining me for today's conversation, we have two people. We start with our senior analyst covering digital health, based in New Jersey, it's Rajeev Leventhal.
- [00:42]
Rajeev Leventhal
Hey, Marcus, happy to be here.
- [00:43]
Marcus
And we're also joined by someone with the same title, same coverage area, but she lives in Pennsylvania. It's Beth Snyder. Bulik, welcome to the show.
- [00:51]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Thanks, Marcus. Happy to be here.
- [00:53]
Marcus
Great. Well, today's fact is where we begin. What happens to the Concorde plane? Who knows what this is, first of all?
- [01:05]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Oh, the ultra high speed jet that gets you like to Singapore in 10 minutes.
- [01:11]
Marcus
Exactly. Tough truth. I think that's an alien spaceship is what you're thinking of, Beth. But yes, that is what the Concorde was hoping to do. Reggie, have you heard of this?
- [01:21]
Rajeev Leventhal
Vaguely. I'm not too familiar though.
- [01:22]
Marcus
Okay, so. So it's a supersonic passenger airplane that flies at Mach 2. What does that mean? It means that it can fly at 1300 miles per hour, which is over 2000 kilometers per hour for our European friends. That's twice the speed of sound and it's two and a half times the speed of a normal plane, commercial plane, that is making it the fastest commercial aircraft ever built. It was developed by British Aircraft Corporation and France's Aerospatiale and it took its first flight in 1969 and then it entered service in 76, getting folks from London to New York in about three and a half hours. Today it takes about six to eight hours, depending on which way around the world you're flying. So where did Concorde go? It was officially retired in 2003 because of a few things. One, there was a fatal crash, which though it wasn't a design flaw, there was something on the Runway actually that it hit when it crashed, when it landed, but it did damage the company's reputation, so that didn't help. Secondly, high ticket prices. There are only few people who can afford, unsurprisingly, the ticket, the round trip or return ticket, which was about $12,000 in those days. Money in the 90s, which today would be 25 grand, which is. Which is a lot high costs for fuel and parts as well. So high operating costs and also just incredibly loud. It made a sonic boom when it traveled. So to fly over land was basically impossible. So to basically only do routes that were over water. So that's where it's gone. I'm going to be honest, I still a bit disappointed. That sounds. So three hours, that means you could basically. I mean, a similar distance from London to New York as it is from New York to la. So you could basically get across the US in about three and a half hours, which would be amazing.
- [03:15]
Beth Snyder Bulik
And no one else is pursuing something like this.
- [03:18]
Marcus
Apparently there is a private company who's looking into supersonic flight and NASA as well, but nothing that's commercially viable.
- [03:32]
Rajeev Leventhal
I feel like the price point that you referenced doesn't necessarily match the value it was providing. I mean, granted it was a lot quicker, but for that price you can just fly private, which of course doesn't get you there that much faster, but provides a lot of the other convenience that people seek out. So it does.
- [03:49]
Marcus
They weren't big planes, so it was only a small number of people who could fit in it anyway. And there weren't many planes either. There were only a handful made. But I'm kind of with you, Ajib. I would have thought there would have been a market for this, though, especially there are a lot of people who have a lot of money. There are a lot of millionaires out there and multimillionaires and billionaires, and so I'm surprised that there aren't. There's not a niche for, you know, someone who has one of these planes to get in places faster and it can afford that kind of a cost. Maybe one day, because I just flew back home and it took longer than it should have. However, Virgin Atlantic, the best people in the world, so they make it. They make it pleasant. Anyway, today's real topic, how weight loss drugs got popular and the spaces they're reshaping. We're talking about weight loss drugs. You might have heard of this before, this thing, but Rajeev, what is it?
- [04:48]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah, so the. So broadly there are class of medications called GLP1s and Ozempic is probably the most famous or well heard of amongst these drugs. And they're for the most part injection. So you, you know, you administer the needle yourself and they basically like. Like the reason why they're so popular is that they're extremely effective. You can lose a lot of weight on them. They're not One of these like kind of diet pills, like these fads that have come and gone, gone over the years. So there's. I know we'll get into it, but there's a few Companies with leading GLP1 products that have kind of dominated or dominate the space.
- [05:38]
Marcus
And so let's talk about them because so really quickly. So I'm gonna probably mispronounce this, but glucagon, like peptide 1 is the GLP1 part. Yes, you mentioned one that you said, Ozempic. What are a few of the names of the popular drugs and a few of the companies selling them?
- [05:56]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah, so there's four really popular ones. Ozempic is probably just the most popular just in terms of like how it's referenced in the media and on social media and also just kind of like in casual conversations. Ozempic and Wegovy are made by Novo Nordisk and Manjaro and Zepbound are the other two really popular ones. They're made by Eli Lilly. So those are the four really, really well known ones and the leading ones in terms of, you know, sales generated. And like I said, those four are all taken by injection. And then there is a fifth one also made by Novo Nordisk that's actually a pill, but it's not nearly as effective as the other four. As you can see on the screen here. Here's the amount of money year over year that the five leading GLP1 products are projected to generate for two companies, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. And this is data per imac. Eli Lilly is approaching a $1 trillion market cap and it's largely based on the sales of their two huge GLP1 drugs, Zepbound and Manjaro. It would become the first pharmaceutical company ever to have a trillion dollar market capitalization. Novo Nartis isn't quite as big just in terms of market value, but it's also huge. And these four, sorry, these five drugs have combined to generate $51 billion in sales or projected sales this year, which is 155% jump from 2023. So only in two years, 155% jump. And then they're also projected to be. These four drugs are projected to be the four fastest growing drugs in terms of year over year sales. So when you look at 2024 drug sales, 2025 projected drug sales, these are the top four drugs that are projected the sales to increase year over year. So and that's among all prescription medication.
- [08:00]
Marcus
And there are a lot of them. Right. These are some of the main ones, but there are a lot more out there. And from just some research on this recently, it seems like a lot of companies, if I'm wrong, they're trying to move to pills that you can just take as popular mouth as opposed to injections because.
- [08:16]
Rajeev Leventhal
Right.
- [08:17]
Marcus
Ramp up adoption.
- [08:18]
Rajeev Leventhal
Right. And you can. Yeah. And you can imagine that of course, people are trying to race to develop a weight loss drug pill that's as effective as the injection. But that has not happened so far because just of the way like the pill like interacts with your blood when it gets into your bloodstream versus the injection, of course everyone would rather take a pill, but they're just not as effective.
- [08:39]
Beth Snyder Bulik
What they're finding out is that you have to have such a high dose for it to be effective as an oral, that it's not, it's impossible to. Almost impossible without. So every, every milligram you go up in dose increases the side effects. So, okay, the few pills that have kind of failed Pfizer had one that they took, they took out of testing because people were dropping off because they had so many side effects, they were sick.
- [09:03]
Marcus
Okay. And so just to go back to the how it works part, I was reading that the GLP1 is a natural hormone the body releases to help control blood sugar and appetite, and it helps GLP1, helps the pancreas release insulin, slows down digestion and signals your brain that you're full. But Beth, these were found. These, these drugs were being used for weight loss, but that's not the original purpose. Right. They were kind of found accidentally.
- [09:34]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Not so accidentally. I mean, they knew it was a side effect. You know, if you've ever seen those commercials for, for GL, for Ozempic was one of the, was the first GLP1. They didn't call it a GLP1, but it was for diabetes, type 2 diabetes. They'd say like, oh, you know, get in your, your zone for a 1C. That's a marker for people who have diabetes. Try to get it under number seven. But they would say, and you might lose a little weight. So they knew it was a side effect that you would lose weight. But they didn't know it wasn't tested specifically for weight loss. So then Novo Nordisk, the company that has Ozempic, which isn't approved for weight loss, by the way, people just use it. Doctors prescribe it off label for weight loss, which a doctor can prescribe pretty much anything they want off label. I mean, they wouldn't do it responsibly, but they know It. It does create weight loss, so they've been prescribing it off label. Anyway, so Novo Nordisk, who had Ozempic and noticed people were losing weight, decided to test it on people who not have diabetes and obesity, and then just people who just have obesity. So for whatever reason, these GLP, that GLP1, WeGovy, it became WeGovy. So that's really complicated. So Ozempic and Wegovy are the same. The same underlying generic drug called Semaglutide.
- [10:48]
Marcus
Okay.
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Beth Snyder Bulik
And people say semi glutide.
- [10:50]
Marcus
I've heard this way.
- [10:51]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Either way, yes.
- [10:52]
Marcus
Okay.
- [10:53]
Beth Snyder Bulik
And that's also. Rebelsis is the same thing. So it's just three different formulations of the same molecule. Let's say it is a molecule. So they started testing it as WeGovy on people who had obesity or were overweight and had another condition and. And found even better success. For whatever reason, it works. It seems to work better on people who don't have diabetes and weight. So the people who had diabetes were losing some weight. People who were just obese were losing a lot more weight. So 15 to 20% of their body weight. Whereas I think the rates for people with type 2 diabetes, correct me if I'm wrong, are more like 7 or 8%.
- [11:29]
Rajeev Leventhal
Single digits. Yeah.
- [11:30]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Yeah. Lower.
- [11:31]
Marcus
Okay.
- [11:32]
Beth Snyder Bulik
So, so they. That was 2021 when they got approved for Wegovy. So Semaglutide as a weight loss drug, Novo Nordisk didn't seem to understand how successful it was going to be, probably in part because they had another drug called Saxenda, an earlier weight loss drug that didn't succeed. So Saxenda didn't do very well. And so they weren't expecting it to do really well, I guess. I don't know. They weren't prepared. So they. By 20, the end of 21, 2021, beginning of 2022, it was in shortage, so nobody could get it. But now everybody wanted it, and that's when the Ozempic craze kind of started. So doctors started prescribing Ozempic off label because there was more Ozempic than there was Wegovy, even though it's the same molecule. So once they went in shortage, then the FDA has this rule that when a drug is in shortage, other people can come in and compound it. So companies like Hims, RO Sequence. What were some of the other early ones?
- [12:29]
Rajeev Leventhal
Rajiv Noom.
- [12:31]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Oh, right. Nope. So they came in and they started compounding that, that generic, that molecule Semaglutide into their own compound. Semaglutide compounds. Semaglutide. And so that helped spur the market because now there's a whole lot more on the market.
- [12:48]
Marcus
Okay, okay, so let's rewind a little bit because I'm wondering whether. Does this predate 2021? Like how did there's Ozempic drugs before?
- [13:00]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Yeah.
- [13:00]
Marcus
Okay. Okay, so, so walk us through quickly, like how the weight loss drugs became popular. What was some of those kind of. You've mentioned a few, but what some of the major markers that got us to the point that we're at right now.
- [13:11]
Beth Snyder Bulik
They work. I mean, people who were, who when they first started getting Wegovia was approved for obesity, people were losing 15, 20% of your body weight. I mean, that's a lot. Yeah, that's on the order. It's getting close to bariatric surgery. I think bariatric surgery is over 20%.
- [13:27]
Marcus
Okay.
- [13:28]
Rajeev Leventhal
But it, and in like, and in like 15 months. So, so you know, if you're.
- [13:33]
Marcus
Wow.
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Rajeev Leventhal
If you're £300.
- [13:35]
Marcus
Right.
- [13:35]
Rajeev Leventhal
So within a year and change, you know, you could lose up to 60 pounds. I mean that's pretty significant. And again, this is just the medication. If you're adding other sort of lifestyle changes related to activity and diet, which we'll talk about a little bit, you could lose even more. But you know, that did a great job going through the history. I just want to add one piece because we'd be remiss not to social media fueled these. The, the, the craze. As, as Beth said, the Ozempic craze. As you can see on the screen, over half of Gen Z and millennials who are aware of weight loss drugs notice weight loss drug related content on social media platforms. That's higher than any other channel. And this is from Emarketer's own survey conducted last December. They've, they've become a, a cultural phenomenon in the last few years. And that's because celebrities and social media influencers would detail their weight loss journeys while on these medications. These posts would go incredibly viral. And consumers in droves just started going to their doctors asking for prescriptions based on what they saw on social media from these celebrity and influencer accounts. And they got the prescriptions like, like they, they go to their doctor and, and the reason why their doctors are willing to prescribe. I, I'd say number one is that again, they're very clinically effective. And number two, most patients probably have a really good case for receiving them. Around 40% of US adults meet the agreed upon clinical Standard of obesity. I mean, that, that we're talking about a ton of people, 40%. And we can, we can kind of, you know, go back and forth on like, if that standard is legit based on bmi, which is a little bit of an outdated marker.
- [15:17]
Marcus
Yeah. I mean, and that's from the cdc, right? That four in ten. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I believe your research on this KPMG study, 9% of adults are using a GLP one.
- [15:32]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah. You know, depending on when a survey is conducted. It's, it's, you know, it could vary a little bit, but it's really that like 8 to 12% range of U.S. consumers now. It's, it's, it's not, it's more than adults, too. It's, it's. Some of these products are approved for adolescents and teens. And then in addition to the 9% or so that are using one, a lot more say they plan to use one. So people will come on and off of these treatments, like we mentioned, that they're effective when they're used for, you know, over a year or so. Not everyone will use them forever. Right. Or even several years. Right. Many will stop due to either side effects or maybe they've achieved their weight loss goals. But then you just probably have like a new wave of people that will start taking one. So at any point, you're looking at like 1 in 10 people who are taking a weight loss drug.
- [16:23]
Marcus
Yeah.
- [16:24]
Rajeev Leventhal
And there's some, some, I think I cited a Ernest Young projection that by the end of the decade or maybe shortly after that, between up to 50 million US adults could be taking, I.
- [16:35]
Marcus
Think within 10 years, you said. Yeah, that's a, that's a huge market. That's basically adults, like one in five adults.
- [16:41]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah. I would just say it's. And Beth, feel, correct me if you disagree, but it's unlike any prescription drug that's ever been developed. In my lifetime.
- [16:52]
Beth Snyder Bulik
It will be the largest market, there'll be the largest pharmaceutical category within, I don't know, by 2030, it's expected to be $150 billion market.
- [17:02]
Marcus
Wow. Wow. So you mentioned two things I want to touch on quickly before we move on to something else. One is folks, how long they, they plan to, or suggested that they use this. Beth, do folks just keep using this or what, what's the, is the plan to kind of move them over to more traditional weight loss methods or what was the, the kind of end game with, with these drugs?
- [17:27]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Right. So it's a, it's a good question. So some of the. Part of the problem is they haven't been around that long. Right. So nobody really knows how long you have to stay on. But it's been shown pretty, pretty consistently that if you go off the drugs, you regain the weight. So I think some, some pharmaceutical companies, some companies are looking at something like sort of micro dosing, which would be go to a lower level and then stay on that sort of for the rest of your life. Like you take a statin for, for cholesterol for heart disease. Okay. So at a lower level that you could maintain that weight loss. And I've actually even seen some studies that have shown that maybe microdosing for, like, postmenopausal women. So it wouldn't be that you're necessarily obese, but that you wouldn't want to. Extra weight causes extra problems, causes bone problems, it causes knee problems, it causes heart problems.
- [18:16]
Rajeev Leventhal
Obesity is such a precursor to really expensive and serious chronic conditions. Beth mentioned heart heart disease, and that's the biggest one. And some of these GL P ones are also FDA approved for some sort of preventive heart disease in people who have OBEs. So and if, you know, if. If they're as effective as we know and as we think they are and have seen that they are so far, for, for those people who stay on them, they. It will be effective in preventing those really serious chronic conditions, especially related to cardiovascular.
- [18:55]
Beth Snyder Bulik
And they are being tested too, in other categories. So there's studies on addiction. Apparently it helps with alcohol cravings. And it's also being studied in Alzheimer's. It's also being studied. I mentioned sleep apnea. Oh. In liver disease. So they're studying these drugs in a lot of different conditions that may be beneficial or showing initial results anyway, that way they sound.
- [19:18]
Marcus
It's fascinating. They sound too good to be true. And so I was like, all right, so what are some of the negative side effects? And I found. So this is from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Vomiting, nausea can be two major side effects. And then the. The National Health Service in the UK said rarer side effects include acute gallstone disease and pancreatitis. Rajeev, talk to us a bit about some of the negative side effects of these drugs.
- [19:42]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah.
- [19:43]
Marcus
How significant it's going to be?
- [19:44]
Rajeev Leventhal
Right. Yeah. Gastrointestinal issues like nausea. It's commonly reported for most people who take them. Many people report experiencing some side effects. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea are, I think, the main ones. And this, look, everyone's tolerance is different. This is a reason why many people Stop using the drugs just to kind of stick on, like, okay, we've talked them up and hyped them up so much. I think the injections versus pills factor is huge. There's a lot of people who just, they're out because of the needle. Like, they will not even start it. They're out. But if, if an effective pill does get developed, which, you know, you look at like the history of pharmaceutical innovation, it probably will at some point. That's just going to increase the number of people who take them. And then like the last negative thing not related to clinical is the costs that they are expensive insurers, many insurers don't cover them for weight loss, which means people are paying out of pocket. I mean, the list price was going to the complexities of medication price in the US but the list price for many of these are like 1500amonth or close to it. Obviously, most people cannot afford that. So if insurance says we're not going to cover it, you know, there's workarounds, there's ways to get them cheaper, but that still is a deterrent for a lot of people.
- [20:59]
Marcus
Yeah. Beth, one of the negative side effects seems to be maybe the social side of this. There was a BBC article that said people see the drugs as cheating. And so socially, how do people feel about taking these drugs? There was Louis M. Collins of Deseret News writing that some experts fear people are choosing to be thinner but not necessarily doing the work to be healthier too. What do you make of the social, negative social effects of these drugs?
- [21:25]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's been even celebrities that have denied that they've taken the drug. And then there's been this whole thing about Ozempic face that people who've lost weight so quickly get sort of a certain look on their face so that people are accusing other people of, oh, you're taking it. So, yeah, definitely. It's one of the things I was thinking about, you know, that marketers sort of need to think about the pharma marketers that and the food and beverage. I know we're going to get into this in a little bit, but like, you almost don't want to say, like, this product is for people who are on GLP1s because people don't seem to want to talk about it. Although I guess it's two sides, right? It's sort of the weight loss crowd who's on social media and saying, like, look, I've lost this much weight. Look, look at, you know, this. I took this GLP1 look what it did for my life. And then you have sort of the other side of people who don't really, who are feeling maybe shamed by it, that people say, oh, well, you're cheating, you know, so maybe it's a little bit of a dichotomy there, Reggie.
- [22:23]
Marcus
That stigma changes over time. I mean, similar with people d online, people using apps to date now it's so common. That stigma has slowly. And so they've gone. Gone away. Do you think that this will happen with these weight loss drugs?
- [22:34]
Rajeev Leventhal
I love that analogy. I think it's starting to happen. The companies who make the drugs are. Have kind of shifted their commercials and like the creative messaging behind it to really try. Yeah. To try to destigmatize, you know, the things that we're talking about and say, look, obese people think that obesity is because people are lazy and it's some sort of personal failure, you know, and these drugs are cheating, as best said. But obesity is not because people are lazy. It is a legitimate clinical condition that requires medication in many cases. And that's where the brands, the Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have gone to sort of get that message out there. There is still definitely, as Beth noted, like, there's. There's two sides of this. People are. Are on both. But I do think it's going to shift towards. That stigma will be reduced more and more over time.
- [23:27]
Marcus
Okay. Do you think it happens quickly, like in the next year or so, or do you think that's more of a, like 10 years out? There's things people will feel differently about these drugs?
- [23:36]
Rajeev Leventhal
I think there will always be a stigma, but I think again, I just go back to how effective they are at losing weight and like the downstream effects that people who lose a ton of weight, how they, how they, how they behave, how they act, how they think and feel. Yeah, that people are just going to be like, I don't care.
- [23:56]
Marcus
Right.
- [23:57]
Rajeev Leventhal
Make fun of me. Like, I. I am a different person than I was 18 months ago. And I think that. I think that that's more.
- [24:03]
Beth Snyder Bulik
And the. More people.
- [24:04]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah, yeah, I think that's more powerful than. Than any sort of shaming.
- [24:07]
Marcus
But a big part of your research in this and your report on this, Rajeev, was about the spaces that these drugs, these weight loss drugs are reshaping and how. And so tell us a bit about some of the major areas that are being impacted. Affected, influenced by these drugs and how they're changing.
- [24:27]
Rajeev Leventhal
So. So food, I think, is by far the biggest market in Terms of so far what we're seeing impacted by how many people are on these weight loss drugs, food and beverage right off the top people are spending less on groceries. A study and really well cited study from Cornell enumerator late last year found that people are people's gross or people are spending about 6 to 9% less on groceries like within the first six months after starting the medication. So they looked at how much you were spending before taking an Ozempic and how much you're spending after and it is a reduction but it's not just a reduction in terms of quantity. It's different quality. People want to eat healthier. They're cutting out chip people on these medications I should preface they're cutting out chips and sav snacks and sweet treats and baked goods. These are the food categories that sort of largest spending reductions. And as you might imagine there are some food and CPG brands that are not too happy about this and they're seeing declining sales in some of their categories like CPG companies like PepsiCo and General Mills. General Mills I think reported a slowdown in snack sales in the mid single digits. You can't 100% correlate that to GLP1 use but I think it's a big part of it. So these brands are very quickly kind of having to pivot and create more healthier items. Create. I know best said it might not be always a great greatest idea to say I'm now creating developing this product line with GLP1 users in mind because of that stigma piece. Right. But we're seeing it happen all over.
- [26:07]
Marcus
When you say with these people use GLP1s in mind are you talking about that they're using direct language. We're speaking to the people who are used or is just a movement of healthier folks. Is that what you mean?
- [26:19]
Rajeev Leventhal
Some, some companies are using direct language. I looked in my, my report yet Nestle is a great example. I think they have like a, an online website of basically if you are taking a weight loss medication here are all of like the products that could benefit you from healthier food to you know, item heavy in protein to even like oh you're experiencing side effects. Here's a supplement for you.
- [26:43]
Marcus
Oh wow.
- [26:44]
Rajeev Leventhal
So yeah, they're not shying away from it. Many are not shying away from it. And I actually think it's, it's forward thinking. I mean this is just going to keep getting. There's going to be a bigger market over the years so why not be proactive?
- [26:56]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Yeah, that's a really great observation. It's the, you know, the websites, they're not putting it on the package like for GLP1 users. But by the way, when you're at home and you're on this drug and you're searching around the web and you're like, oh, wait, you know, what should I be eating? I'm not eating as much. I need to up my protein, I need to eat healthier whole foods and there's Nestle with a whole list of things that can, you know, help me snack through it or whatever.
- [27:22]
Marcus
Beth, what's another industry that you see being affected by this?
- [27:26]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Definitely the fitness industry. So on, on two ways. So people who are on these drugs are being encouraged. So one of the side effects is that you lose, when you lose weight so quickly, but. And these are faster than, you know, normal weight loss, unless you're just, I don't know, starving yourself, I suppose, but you lose muscle mass. So there's some drug companies that are looking at, how are looking at drugs or testing drugs that can help with muscle mass as you lose weight. So that's something to look at down the line. But they're just in trials now. But anyway, so people are being encouraged by their doctors and they're being prescribed these drugs. They're not, it's not irresponsible, like just a rush to make money off of these things.
- [28:06]
Marcus
Okay, okay.
- [28:07]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Not established companies, but if you go through your doctor, you go through, you go through Noom or RO or you know, you, you're meeting with somebody online, they're telling you you need to exercise. This is not just a, it's not as a quick fix injection. You've got to do these other things. So for the, for the fitness industry, you, there's a way to capitalize on that. Right. So you could have classes muscle building, you know, we have strength classes. For the supplement makers, this is a muscle enhancing supplement. So yeah, definitely that there's some opportunities there for that, that industry.
- [28:39]
Marcus
Okay.
- [28:40]
Rajeev Leventhal
And I think that might come off as surprising to some who, who. Because if you're losing as much or more weight than you would if you were like making these wholesale diet changes or working out six times a week, like you might think that, well, the medication is producing enough results. I don't need to work out on top of it. I don't need to go to the gym five times a week. But we're kind of seeing the opposite. Like very few people are, say they're exercising that are on these medications, are exercising less frequently. Many are like signing up for gyms for the first time. I think it all kind of comes back to, like, feeling confident, healthier, and just a better version of yourself while taking these. These medications.
- [29:18]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Yeah, that's true. The more weight you lose, if you weigh 300 pounds, it's probably uncomfortable to go to the gym or, you know, get on a peloton. When you lose a few pounds, they're like, okay, I feel better. I do this.
- [29:27]
Marcus
Yeah, I could speak to you guys for an hour on this. Unfortunately, that's what we've got time for. Reggie's full report is called the Impact of weight loss drugs 2025. The Ozempic effect is reshaping the health, wellness and food markets. There are more areas being impacted in the report. There are recommendations for all these different industries on how to react to this huge, huge trend that is taking place. Thank you so much to my, my guest today for talking to me about this and helping explain what the hell is going on. Thank you. First, Rajiv.
- [29:57]
Rajeev Leventhal
Yeah, thanks, Mark. It's great seeing you, as always.
- [29:59]
Marcus
Yes, sir. And thank you to Beth.
- [30:02]
Beth Snyder Bulik
Thanks, Marcus. Nice to be here.
- [30:04]
Marcus
Yes, miss. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks to the whole editing crew and to everyone for listening to behind the Numbers, the marketing video podcast made possible by Quad. Subscribe to get updates to new episodes follow so it's easier to find us in your library and leave a rating and review to to help keep this show going. Sarah will be here on Wednesday with the Reimagining retail show, discussing how our 2025 predictions are going and a few new ones that we're adding to the list.