Eli Lilly has beaten its staunch obesity rival Novo Nordisk to market in China by securing an approval for its weight loss pill orforglipron from the country’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), according to Reuters.
This makes the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA), marketed as Foundayo, the first oral drug of its kind to get the regulatory green light in China for use in weight management.
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Before Foundayo’s landmark NMPA blessing, the agency had approved multiple injectable drugs, such as Lilly’s Zepbound (tirzepatide), Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide) and Pfizer & Sciwind Biosciences’ Xianyida (ecnoglutide), as well as Chinese biotech Innovent Biologics’ Xinermei (mazdutide).
Now that Foundayo has regulatory approval in China, Lilly will expand its use into another geography. The drug is now approved in the US, the United Arab Emirates and the UK, alongside China. This development also puts Lilly ahead of rival obesity player, Novo, which is currently vying for approval of its GLP-1RA pill, oral Wegovy, in China, with the NMPA having accepted its marketing application for the drug earlier this year. Similarly, Huadong Medicine and Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals are also seeking approvals for their oral weight loss drugs in China.
While Lilly may be the first to crack the Chinese oral GLP-1RA market, Novo took this title in the US, as it became the first to debut a drug of this type on any global market. Currently, analysts at GlobalData, the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology, forecast that oral Wegovy will take the helm over Foundayo as the best-selling oral GLP-1RA in 2026.
However, analysts do not foresee the drug holding onto the top-selling spot for long, as they predict that Foundayo will gradually outpace oral Wegovy sales-wise, with the former therapy expected to bring in over $21bn for Lilly in 2032 – significantly eclipsing the $10bn sales predicted for the latter, despite its first-to-market lead.
Foundayo’s Chinese approval comes as Lilly raised its 2026 outlook for the third time this year after its tirzepatide franchise outperformed several big pharma companies in Q3. Meanwhile, the outlook is not so bright for competitor Novo, as its five-year commercial strategy failed to enamour investors as they raise concerns about the Danish pharma giant’s future growth.
At the recent 2026 BIO-Europe conference, held in Cologne, Germany, between 9 and 11 November, experts noted that novel targets such as amylin, as well as combinations with GLP-1RAs, will drive the next wave of innovation in the cardiometabolic space, as drugmakers aim to create more tolerable, convenient and muscle-sparing treatment options.
