The GLP-1 pill — The Lexington Line

The modern-day space race: who can make people skinner faster?

Ozempic has been such a buzzword in the past two years. It was approved by the FDA in 2017 as a type 2 diabetes treatment, but wasn’t used as a weight management medication until 2021. When we realized what this did, we, as a society, struck gold. It was a gold mine for all parties included: the drug companies selling this medicine as well as the people that want to lose weight quickly. People don’t have to get this medication illegally if they aren’t diabetic, as it’s not used specifically to treat diabetes, but literally used for weight management.

So, people like your product, you’re making millions of dollars by creating a medication that makes people feel better about themselves. The next step is finding a way to make your product even more accessible.

Aside from not knowing the long-term effects of this medication, a defining characteristic of this medication is that it has to be injected. This is of course something turning people away from the medication. However, Eli Lilly and Pfizer have both found this pocket: a group of people that would be buying and using their drug if it weren't so difficult to take.

Introducing: the pill race. These pharmaceutical conglomerates are racing to get the pill in the market. Whoever releases this pill first will be the one to hit the jackpot—the one that could change the way weight loss medications are perceived.

I’m interested to see the way that this pill will affect fashion and perhaps our perception of style. This may be the evolution of the “heroin chic epidemic.” We are incapable of predicting the future of what body type will be trending; however, following the pharmaceutical trends may aid us in trend forecasting.