No Mercy / No Malice: The Weight

**Scott Galloway** (0:01)
Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business takes everything you've got, and a lot of the tools out there that are supposed to make your life easier just aren't great talking to each other. And that means you end up having to toggle between a dozen different apps and services just to keep the lights on.
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:33)
Support for this show comes from Odoo.
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Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:14)
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**Scott Galloway** (1:52)
I'm Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice. The most transformative technology with the greatest asymmetric upside isn't Chat GPT-5, but GLP-1s.
The weight, as read by George Hahn.

**George Hahn** (2:20)
God, I'm sick of talking about SpaceX. More impressive than the Falcon Heavy Rocket, and it is impressive, is Elon Inc.'s ability to manufacture scarcity. Getting the NASDAQ to waive requirements applied to every company until now, so he can force index funds to purchase shares, aims a demand cannon of $75 billion at a business with a small float. The result is a price that in no way reflects the underlying value. But I digress, this isn't an investment, but a trade. So where to invest? The technology with the greater asymmetric upside, as well as the clearest path to transforming the economy and the well-being of more than 200 million Americans, isn't Falcon 9 boosters or GPT-5, but GLP-1s.
US obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years. Our instincts, developed over hundreds of thousands of years when food was scarce, haven't kept pace with industrial production, so we gorge. Obesity is a comorbidity for 200-plus chronic diseases, the central node in a network of poor health outcomes. The total bill for national health expenditures, including public and private spending, is $5.3 trillion.
By 2033, one out of every $5 in the economy will go to health care. This is the IED at the center of the US economy.
Five years ago, when Ozempic and Wigovie were first approved for weight loss, GLP-1s looked like a silver bullet for obesity. Today, they're a fully loaded magazine of silver bullets aimed at obesity, addiction, cancer, sleep apnea, and a growing list of other diseases and chronic conditions. The velocity of innovation is remarkable.
Usually, when a new medicine happens, we have time to learn how to use it. Dr. Melanie Jay, director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity, told The New York Times. But with GLP-1s, everyone is kind of iterating in real time.
Some recent iterations. Last month, Eli Lilly announced that its phase 3 trial for retitrutide, a triple agonist dubbed Godzilla that activates GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors, appears to exceed the performance of other weight loss medications. On average, patients on ZetBound or Wigovie lose between 14% and 20% of their initial body weight over 72 weeks. Patients in the retitrutide trial taking 4 mg, 9 mg and 12 mg doses lost an average of 19%, 26% and 29% of their starting weight, respectively. But the most promising drug is Foundeo, a daily pill from Eli Lilly, the FDA approved for weight loss in April. In clinical trials, it resulted in 12% weight loss over 72 weeks. Less effective than shots, but a good alternative for the 66 million Americans who are afraid of needles. The pills also show a promise as a maintenance tool. As Nicholas Florco wrote in The Atlantic, America has a new GLP-1 playbook, with a shot to lose weight and a pill to keep it off. In the US, 1 in 8 adults currently take a GLP-1, with prescriptions for weight loss doubling from 2024 to 2025 It's working. A year after the drugs were approved for weight loss, the US obesity rate peaked at 40%, but it has since begun to decline. Sadly, GLP-1s haven't had the same impact on their initial target, diabetes.