The battle over the trillion-dollar weight-loss bonanza

WEIGHT-LOSS drugs called GLP-1 agonists help users shed fat, and with it the negative health effects of obesity. This can have life-changing effects for the people who take them. It is also increasingly affecting the lives of corporate citizens. Since June 2021, when Wegovy, the first GLP-1 slimming jab, was launched in America, the market value of WW (formerly Weight Watchers) has crashed by 90%. On February 28th Oprah Winfrey announced that she would leave the dieting firm’s board and sell all her shares in order to avoid a conflict of interest around her use of GLP-1s. Food giants such as Nestlé are already planning for a future where the drugs dampen demand for sugary snacks. Bosses of consumer-goods firms brought up weight-loss drugs twice as often in the last full set of quarterly earnings calls, in late 2023, as they had in the previous one (see chart 1).