GLP-1 Sector Explodes, Ushering in a Golden Opportunity for the Industry Chain
In 2024, the global demand for weight loss continues to be unleashed, leading to an explosive growth of GLP-1 drugs. This has also spurred the collective growth of related industries, such as medical consumables, APIs, and innovative drugs.
Driven by a continuous surge in global demand for weight loss solutions, the GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) industry is experiencing a boom in 2024. These drugs are revolutionizing the treatment of obesity by controlling blood sugar through a glucose-dependent mechanism, delaying gastric emptying, and suppressing appetite via the central nervous system. This has led to synergistic growth across the entire supply chain, including medical consumables, APIs, and innovative drugs.
The potential for GLP-1 blockbusters has already been proven in the international market. In 2023, Novo Nordisk's semaglutide and Eli Lilly's tirzepatide generated sales of $21.2 billion and $5.34 billion, respectively. In the first half of 2024, semaglutide sales surged 42.6% year-over-year to $13.3 billion, prompting Novo Nordisk to raise its full-year revenue growth forecast to 22%-28%, an increase from its previous guidance. Driven by this demand, international pharmaceutical giants are accelerating their production capacity expansion.
The entire industry chain is benefiting simultaneously. In the upstream consumables sector, injection pens are the largest sub-category, with the global market size projected to reach $7.3 billion by 2030. In the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) segment, there's strong demand, with technological barriers becoming a core competitive advantage. A leading domestic peptide drug company is operating at a full capacity of 400 kg/year and secured an order of up to $48.2 million in September 2024. In the first half of 2024, its revenue was $27.4 million, a 14.4% year-over-year increase, while its non-GAAP net profit was $2.6 million, a 106.6% year-over-year surge. Both innovative and generic drugs are advancing in parallel. In the generic drug space, the earliest patent for semaglutide in China will expire in 2026. Some companies have already submitted applications for biosimilar drug approvals. In the first half of 2024, the gross and net sales margins of a relevant company increased by 1.87 and 4.01 percentage points, respectively, year-over-year. On the innovation front, progress is being made with dual-target drugs. A company's dual-target product showed superior weight loss metrics compared to a placebo in Phase II clinical trials. In the first half of 2024, its R&D expenses increased by 38.09% year-over-year, with over half of the investment allocated to core projects.
The GLP-1 industry chain is currently experiencing a "demand-pull, supply-push" dynamic, with strong symbiotic growth between supply and demand. The certainty of performance and revenue for high-quality companies throughout the value chain is strong, and their systemic investment value is becoming increasingly prominent, making GLP-1 a core focus in the pharmaceutical sector.