Already a subscriber?Australia’s supermarket giants and fast-food chains may need to brace for a hit to customer demand as the adoption of diabetes and weight-loss drugs like Ozempic accelerates.
Morning Stanley warns Woolworths and Coles were exposed to the potential changes in national eating habits.the world by storm last year, sending shares of drug developer Novo Nordisk and competitor Eli Lilly soaring asIn the new report, the investment bank’s analysts told clients that they predicted the still-nascent weight-loss drug market would grow to $US105 billion by 2030, up from a previous estimate of $US77 billion.
The promise of easier access to weight-loss treatments prompted investors to flee ASX-listed health-tech developers in droves last year,Shares in both companies have since recovered, and – contrary to last year’s sell-off – the report said that ResMed’s key sleep apnoea market did not look at risk from the rise of weight-loss drugs in the near future.
More broadly, the investment bank forecasts demand for the drugs in Australia to be the highest in the Asia Pacific region – given the nation’s higher rates of obesity – and could penetrate as much as 40 per cent of the market by the early 2030s – from just 0.7 per cent today.And if the drugs become that widespread, Morgan Stanley predicts it could have effects outside healthcare. “Australia is the only market where our consumer team expects a moderate impact,” the report said.