Here's How the New Weight Loss Drugs Could Change Everything

Joe Weisenthal (0:00)

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Tracy Alloway (1:07)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (1:12)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (1:14)

Would you ever go on Ozempic?

Joe Weisenthal (1:16)

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Tracy Alloway (1:19)

Really?

Joe Weisenthal (1:19)

Well, yeah, why not? It seems fun. It reduces your appetite, probably lose weight. It seems like it also has a bunch of other, I keep seeing these other things, like, it's good for like, you know, impulse control and all kinds of positive things.

Tracy Alloway (1:34)

Yeah, supposed to be good for impulses and addiction. And also, I think there's some new stat out saying that it reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke by 20 percent. Well, anyway, would you? I think yes.

However, I would definitely wait for the price to come down a little bit and maybe for more of the side effects to become apparent. But I'm very cautious with these sorts of medical breakthroughs.

Joe Weisenthal (2:02)

Yeah, I feel like I don't know that much about all these drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy and the other GLP ones, but they seem pretty great. And I'm just like, yeah, upward and onward.

The march of progress, science. I love it.

No, but I actually do think like it is something I've been thinking about is like people are so skeptical of even the possibility of the existence of a wonder drug that people are like, oh, it's going to do this. It's going to do this. It's going to be bad. It's going to reverse. It's going to, and maybe that's possible, but what if it really is a wonder drug?

Tracy Alloway (2:34)

Well, exactly. And I think it opens up a ton of interesting questions specifically about what it means for wider society and the wider economy when we know that obesity and diseases like diabetes have been this huge weight on both the socioeconomy and the healthcare industry.

Joe Weisenthal (2:55)

Obesity itself is like just this gigantic economic force. It's a business force. There are businesses that thrive on how much people like to eat unhealthy foods. There are huge costs to insurers. There are other second order effects related to injuries and heart complications and so forth. It's such a modern, important phenomenon that were there to be, and maybe it kind of looks like there is, but were there to be this sort of straightforward way to reduce obesity, it seems like the implications would be huge.

Tracy Alloway (3:26)

Right, and I keep getting visions of like Star Trek in my head, where everyone is kind of slim and dressed in tracksuits, and very athletically capable, and we all just wander around spaceships. So that sounds great. Well, anyway, on a serious note, I think we need to dive into these new sets of drugs. What exactly are they, how do they work, and more importantly, more interestingly, what do they actually mean for the wider economy and the business environment?

Joe Weisenthal (3:55)

So many, I'm so glad we're doing this because it does feel like beyond just the companies selling these drugs, which we know have been taken off, we're recording this on August 9th, just yesterday, Novo Nordisk, the Danish company soared because they had another test showing that one of these drugs was very good for fighting heart disease.

So we know that there's like the interest in the vendors, the sellers of the drugs. But again, what does it mean all these second and third order effects if they really become extremely widespread and it kind of looks like they're on that trajectory feels very unexplored.

Tracy Alloway (4:27)

Yep. So let's dive into those second order effects of Miracle Weight Loss Drugs, a fun episode ahead. We have really the perfect guest. We are going to be speaking with James van Geelen of Citrinitas Capital, also known as Citrini on Twitter. So James, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.