With more than one billion people globally suffering from obesity, pharmaceutical approaches to treatment, such as glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), hold the potential to revolutionise the care of the chronic condition, while improving patient outcomes.
As obesity therapies from cardiometabolic giants old and new continue to grab headlines for their promise in achieving bariatric surgery-like outcomes, patients are increasingly engaging with the modality on social media – with the first 100 top videos relating to Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic (semaglutide) having 70 million views on TikTok, said Earim Chaudry, CMO of online weight-loss clinic Voy, in a morning panel session at the 2026 HLTH Europe conference, held in Amsterdam from 15-18 June.
Chaudry shares this stat as a report from GlobalData, parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology, estimates that the obesity therapeutic market alone will reach sales of $173.5bn across the seven major markets (7MM: the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and Japan) by 2031.
At HLTH 2026, panellists were keen to discuss the burgeoning role of obesity drugs in the cardiometabolic treatment paradigm, though many noted that attitudes towards obesity, as well as lagging healthcare coverage across Europe, could threaten to limit access to potentially life-changing treatments for patients.
Moving past the stigma
During a panel session on the first day of HLTH 2026, Kim Boyd, CMO of Weight Watchers, touted the “transformative” potential of obesity drugs, due to their ability to prompt weight loss outcomes similar to bariatric surgery. These outcomes, Boyd says, can offer patients hope, while potentially contributing to the removal of the stigma around obesity, as an increasing number of individuals are treated for the disease as a chronic illness rather than a lifestyle choice.
However, the stigma around obesity is still a huge issue – both within patients and doctors, noted Chaudry, as 55% of patients on weight loss medications are hiding this fact from their partners. He added that this stigma can also cause people to discontinue treatment, another factor that can alter outcomes. The panellists, as well as speakers in a fireside chat later on in the day note that providing better educational programmes that help quell this challenge.
Changes in thinking will also have to extend to doctors, Boyd said, as obesity is currently not a core part of medical education, despite the understanding of obesity growing within the past 15 years. “We know that obesity is a complex metabolic disease, and yet, because of the way our medical system is siloed and structured, we don’t think about systems very holistically, which is a deep problem,” she commented.
This is also true at a governmental level in Germany, said Dennis Ballwieser, editor-in-chief of German health media company Wort & Bild Verlag, who noted that by German law, obesity is considered a lifestyle choice. This differs from Italy, which recently passed a law acknowledging obesity as a chronic disease.
Securing obesity drug coverage in Europe
While the use of obesity medications is generally on the up globally, this trend is seen most strongly in the US, where 10% of eligible patients are treated with GLP-1RAs compared with 2-3% in Europe, noted Novo Nordisk’s SVP Region Europe and Canada, Vince Lamanna, in a fireside chat.
In another fireside chat, Scott Honken, CCO of Weight Watchers, noted that, while Europe may be a couple of years behind the US in terms of wider weight loss drug use, there are some opportunities the continent can seize. “The public integrated systems hold the value of combining both the medication and complementary care as you think about coverage,” he commented.
However, Honken caveated that most European entities aren’t covering GLP-1RAs currently, and thereby the wraparound care could involve bringing care disciplines forward together.
According to Chaudry, the cautious and slow rollout of weight loss drugs comes at a cost, as healthcare services may not see as impactful a return on investment (ROI).
Kai Eberhardt. co-founder & CEO of Oviva, echoed this sentiment, noting that patients on the company’s treatment pathway saw a “50% reduction in the number of sickness days up to six months”, potentially proving to employers that such interventions can offer a societal return through higher productivity and getting patients back to work.
As developers aim for widespread obesity coverage, Chaudry notes that medications are “the start, not the destination”, and key focus should be around the factors that exist around GLP-1RAs. “We need to look at the models of care, the sustainability, the greater health challenges and the systemic change that needs to happen – I would always caution against the ‘moving slow and safe’ model,” he said.
To boost the understanding of how weight loss therapies can benefit patients, Lamanna believes that partnerships around behaviour modification will be critical.
The importance of data in the obesity shift
By collecting real-world evidence (RWE) on the efficacy of weight loss drugs in an obese patient population, Chaudry says, developers have a better chance of proving their worth to healthcare systems – thus potentially increasing further coverage.
RWE has also cemented the potential of a combinatory behavioural-plus-pharmaceutical approach, Honken added, with patients seeing an additional 29% weight loss compared with medication alone at the 12 month-mark.
This evidence will also need to be collected around how weight loss can be maintained over time, noted Honken, as the healthcare industry grapples with rebounding weight gain from patients who discontinue treatment.
