India got cheap Ozempic. No one knows how to sell it

**Rachel Varghese** (0:02)
Can you think of a single Indian celebrity who has publicly said that they are on Ozempic? If Karan Johar's dramatic weight loss just came to mind, well, he has only ever denied the rumors. People ask me, are you on Ozempic or Manjaro? I am tired of people saying that they don't know my truth. So I don't even want to tell you the truth.
And if you can't think of anyone else, don't worry. You are not behind on any gossip. There isn't a single Bollywood celebrity who has openly admitted to being on the blockbuster weight loss drug.
And on the other side of the world, it's the complete polar opposite. For example, here's Jimmy Kimmel hosting the 2023 Oscars.

**Jimmy Kimmel** (0:49)
When I look around this room, I can't help but wonder, is Ozempic right for me?

**Rachel Varghese** (0:54)
Even three years ago, Ozempic was common enough in Hollywood that Kimmel was making jokes about it on live TV. Since then, more public figures have admitted to being on the medication and have even advertised it or other related products. And you might be surprised to know that Bollywood's almost total radio silence on this new class of diabetes and weight loss drugs is part of the reason why the medication, which was expected to blow up in India, has actually kind of hit a wall. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, the India MD of Novo Nordisk, the company that owns Ozempic, said in an interview for the print that weight loss drugs were just scratching the surface in India. And this is the case four months into the wave of GLP-1 generics that hit the Indian market in March this year. Almost as soon as Novo Nordisk's patent on semaglutide, a key chemical component in Ozempic expired, more than 50 pharma brands released their own cheaper variants. The excitement had the numbers to back it up in the start. Analysts predicted that the segment could be worth a billion dollars in India by just 2030 After all, India also currently has the world's second largest diabetes population and the third largest obese population. And to take a bite out of that pie, it wasn't just the drug makers who rushed in. A whole ecosystem of products and services are popping up to address the side effects of being on these drugs. This includes FMCG brands like Nestlé and Tata Consumer, beauty brands like Sugar and Lachmé, and even nutrition and fitness tracking platforms like HealthifyMe.
But the growth everyone has bet on is already showing signs of stalling. For example, a Nomura report predicted 2026 sales for the medicine would cross $260 million.
But by July, only 20% of the number has been hit, leaving only 5 months for the producers to make up the other 80 And the reason behind this stall is a cultural mismatch that pharma companies forgot to factor in.
Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from The Ken. I'm your host, Rachel Varghese, And every day of the week, my co-host Snigdha Sharma and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 2nd of September.
Before we go any further, let me quickly explain to you what GLP-1 medications are. and what they do. They basically mimic a hormone that your body already makes. The hormone helps regulate blood sugar, appetite and how full you feel. They were first developed to treat diabetes patients, but it has increasingly become popular in treating obesity and to trigger weight loss as well. Because one of the things it does is reduce appetite and make people feel full for longer. In India, they first became popular with urban affluent folks around 2024, way before any of these medicines were officially even available here. A Fortune report even described a fancy New Delhi clinic for cosmetology and metabolic treatment where celebrities and NRIs were trying to get their hands on the drug through prescriptions and the gray market. Even a reporter here at The Ken had found the drug on the black market around that time through Facebook groups and eventually a pharmacy in the posh suburb of Juhu in Mumbai. I'll be linking it in the show notes if you'd like to give it a read. Now these rich Indians from posh areas in the country were possibly the easiest demographic for the medicine to reach once it was officially available in the Indian market. But unfortunately for pharma companies, the numbers show that they ran out of this group quite soon. Market research firm Pharma Rack reported last month that the monthly sales for GLP-1 drugs rose only by about 2% in June. That's down from a 58.4% growth in April. Sheetal Sapale, the VP of commercial at Pharma Rack, explained in a report to Bloomberg that the dip was because all eligible patients have been onboarded onto this drug and fewer newer patients are starting this therapy.