Eli Lilly nabbed a coveted FDA approval for its obesity drug this month and, despite using the same ingredient as its diabetes drug Mounjaro, the U.S. Big Pharma has created a dividing line between the two franchises.
Meet Zepbound, which, just like Mounjaro, contains tirzepatide but is now licensed to treat certain obese patients. This differentiates it from Mounjaro and answers the question Lilly management has been pondering since early last year about whether it should create a new brand for the obesity label.
Speaking on a call to journalists after the approval earlier this week, Mike Mason, president of Lilly Diabetes and Obesity, said the company “loves the name [Zepbound].”
He added: “It tested very well with consumers and healthcare professionals. There's a long process to select that name. We make sure we get really good input from healthcare professionals and consumers along the way.”
Fierce Pharma Marketing contacted the Brand Institute, which names most new drugs, but the company did not want to speak on its work with Lilly.
This approval puts Lilly at a fierce rivalry with Novo Nordisk and its weight loss drug Wegovy. Lilly is, however, following Novo’s branding playbook, echoing the Danish company’s own route to approval.
Novo too had its diabetes drug Ozempic, an injectable GLP-1 approved by the FDA for diabetes and made from the ingredient semaglutide. Novo realized in testing this also helped some people lose substantial amounts of weight and thus re-jigged its dosing and later nabbed an FDA approval for obesity.
Here, it hived off the Ozempic name and created a new brand with Wegovy.
Both companies have, however, suffered from a strange cultural phenomenon that has elevated use of tirzepatide and semaglutide for weight loss among some celebrities and social media influencers, leading to many people seeking the drugs as a quick fix to lose excess pounds.
This has, however, caused issues for Ozempic and partly for Mounjaro. Some have realized that Ozempic and Mounjaro can help with weight loss, but of course both drugs are for diabetes management only, causing an unusually high demand for both, which consequently has hit supply.
The names of the drugs have also for many become interchangeable: Whether Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro or now Zepbound, it appears to be the results that matter, not so much the branding. Both Lilly and Novo will likely have to push hard on the marketing for its obesity brands to try to reset that.