Novo has filed a lawsuit against its competitor, Eli Lilly, over advertisements for weight-loss drugs

Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, which manufactures best-selling obesity drugs including Ozempic, has filed a lawsuit against its U.S. competitor Eli Lilly, according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit alleges that Lilly’s advertisements for its popular injectable drugs mislead the public regarding their effectiveness compared to Novo’s equivalent products.

Novo has accused Eli Lilly of false advertising and unfair competition. The lawsuit concerns a video that the American pharmaceutical company began airing in April. Since then, the video has garnered more than 700 million views. It uses data from a head-to-head comparative study of the two competitors’ drugs, John Kukelman, general counsel for the Danish giant, said in an interview with Bloomberg. It is claimed that patients taking Lilly’s Zepbound lost an average of 22.7 kg, while Novo’s Wegovy resulted in a weight loss of only 15 kg.

Novo stated that the advertising campaign is based on outdated clinical trials that compared Lilly’s maximum doses with lower doses of the Danish manufacturer’s drugs. Lilly’s Zepbound did indeed outperform Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical trial last year, but Novo subsequently received regulatory approval for a higher dose of its best-selling drug, Bloomberg explains.

Novo made a similar allegation regarding an advertisement for the injectable diabetes drug Mounjaro: according to the lawsuit, the commercial claims that Lilly’s drug lowers blood sugar more effectively than Ozempic.

In April, Novo sent its competitor a formal demand to cease its unlawful actions, according to a lawyer for the Danish company. However, Lilly, he said, did not respond to the request but merely added a footnote to its advertisement stating that a higher dose was not available at the time the study was conducted.

The Danish pharmaceutical manufacturer is asking the court to order Lilly to immediately stop running this ad and to issue “corrective materials,” the company’s lawyer said. “They’ve already, so to speak, poisoned the well, and now it needs to be cleaned up,” he said. Novo is also seeking compensation for financial damages, though the amount has not been disclosed.

Lilly was unable to respond promptly to the agency's request for comment.

Lilly shares rose 1% in U.S. trading. Novo shares fell 1.1% in Copenhagen.

Both pharmaceutical companies are competing for a share of the global market for obesity treatments, which, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, is projected to reach $120 billion by 2030.

Although Novo beat Lilly to the market by launching Wegovy in 2021, the American pharmaceutical giant caught up with its competitor thanks to Zepbound in 2023 and now leads in sales volume. Novo is making every effort to regain its market share: it is partnering with telemedicine companies and has also launched a tablet version of the drug, which has already gained immense popularity among patients, according to Bloomberg.

The Danish giant is also banking on lower prices and a higher-dose version of Wegovy, CNBC notes. In recent years, Lilly’s drugs have become more popular among many doctors and patients thanks to their high efficacy, and the advanced Wegovy—which has shown an average weight loss of about 19%—is a direct response to this challenge, the network explains.

On the stock market, the American manufacturer has the upper hand. Over the past 12 months, Eli Lilly’s market capitalization has risen by 50%, while Novo Nordisk’s market value has fallen by 23.3%, causing the Danish giant to lose its status as Europe’s most valuable company.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor