Latest news with #Semaglutide
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Torrent aims to be among first cos to launch Wegovy, Ozempic generics in Brazil
Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd aims to be in the first wave of generic launches of Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic in Brazil starting next year, the company's management said on Monday, without sharing exact timelines. Semaglutide, the GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) compound which is sold under brand names Wegovy and Ozempic, is set to go off patent in key markets, including India and Brazil, in March 2026. Indian generic players are gearing up to cash in on the blockbuster opportunity. While declining to share the company's specific plans, Sanjay Gupta, Torrent Pharma's head of international business, told investors in a post-earnings call that the Ahmedabad-based drugmaker is planning generic launches for both Ozempic and Wegovy in Brazil. '...we are working on both the products without giving you more specificities. And we are trying to be in the wave-one of launches," Gupta said. Also Read: India-UK FTA to boost bilateral trade for pharma, medtech In Brazil, Ozempic's market size has declined since 2024 following the launch of Wegovy, said Gupta. 'The current size of Ozempic has come down a lot…by the time it goes off-patent, it would be smaller," he said, adding that due to changes in regulations, it is losing share to Wegovy. 'Wegovy should come to the market a little later because people have not started filing yet…I would be much more gung-ho about Wegovy because of where the market is going and the fact that we have better chances of being on day one," he said. As of 2024, Brazil's Semaglutide market was estimated at $581 million. The global market size for GLP-1 is expected to grow to $100 billion by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs, a bank. India, Brazil drive growth Torrent Pharma reported a 20% year-on-year increase in net profit in the June quarter to ₹548 crore, on the back of double-digit growth in its largest branded markets, India and Brazil. The company's revenue rose 11% year-on-year to ₹3,178 crore in the June quarter, in line with estimates. Its Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) increased 14% to ₹1,032 crore, with an operating Ebitda margin of 32.5%. The company's management expects the margin to remain stable through FY26. Its India business grew 11% YoY to ₹1,811 crore, led by outperformance in key therapies. Also Read: Cipla sees weight-loss drugs as the biggest opportunity in India 'We expect the India business to continue outperforming the market growth. Our focus during the year will be to continue to improve the market share in focus therapies, new launch performance, improve teamforce productivity in expanded divisions and regions and continue the investments and scale-up of the consumer health portfolios," Aman Mehta, managing director-designate, told investors. Mehta is set to take the role of managing director at Torrent Pharmaceuticals starting 1 August. He has been involved mainly with Torrent Pharma's India business, the company's largest revenue contributor, and has played an instrumental role in the integration of Unichem Laboratories Ltd, acquired in 2017, and the acquistion of Curatio Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. in 2022. The company's Brazil business saw its revenues rise 11% to ₹218 crore. JB Pharma acquisition to boost India play Torrent is currently in the process of acquiring a controlling stake in drugmaker JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals (JB Pharma) from global investment firm KKR. The deal, announced in late June, values JB Chemicals at an equity valuation of ₹25,689 crore. The deal will be followed by a merger of the two entities. Also Read: Contract drug makers timed their IPOs right. But are they worth the premium? The deal will strengthen Torrent's presence in the Indian market, catapulting it to the fifth-largest pharma company in the country, from seventh position. It will also facilitate its entry into the fast-growing contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) segment. The company is currently awaiting a decision from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the deal, the management said.
Mint
3 days ago
- Health
- Mint
Manu Joseph: Why drugs that eat our hunger won't cause a revolution
Two drugs are generating the sort of cultural excitement that only Viagra once did. Like Viagra, their effects are visible, and often not attributed to the medicine. Semaglutide and Tirzepatide, known by their brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro, were designed to treat diabetes. But as often happens with iconic drugs, their fame lies in what they do on the side. They reduce appetite. So, people eat less and lose weight. Doctors are taking these drugs too, which is a good sign. Not that they are paragons of health, but they know how patients respond to the drugs and so it suggests they consider them safe. Meanwhile, society is bracing for a behavioural revolution. A certain leanness—a non-muscular kind in middle-aged people that I already associate with these drugs—might become another motif of wealth. At the moment, the drugs are for the affluent, but that can change over time. There is even a view that once these drugs go off patent and generics flood the market, they may hurt the restaurant business. Also Read: What body positivity means in the age of Ozempic I doubt that. I think their impact will be modest. People do not eat because they're hungry, especially the rich. Even most of the poor no longer eat out of necessity alone. Nobody eats maida noodles and biryani out of hunger. For most people, eating is a form of entertainment. Even a source of happiness. Many people can bear the period between meals because they know food is coming. Many keep eating through the day because people do a lot of what is fun. Also, food is the most legit drug addiction. Some years ago, Silicon Valley fell in love with a powdered food called Soylent. Just add water and drink. It was engineered to provide all the nutrients the body needs. As the product didn't ship to India, I found an Indian version of it. I carried packets everywhere. I was sorted, I felt. I liked the idea of just drinking food and being done with it. I had defeated an ancient cultural force that had entrapped me through what I always viewed as an obsolete mode of nutrition. There is nothing wrong with Soylent, but its revolution never took off. People realized that life, as we've built it, revolves around food. Meals are where we meet. Efficiency is not the point. In fact, if we are efficient at all, it is in matters other than food, so that we can lavish our time on food. At first glance, drugs that kill appetite may appear to be different from a tasteless drink that merely has everything the body needs. The drugs don't replace food. People would still eat tasty meals, even if they eat less. They would meet friends over meals, but leave most of it on their plates. At first, people will be alright with it. They are having it all, they might say. Tasty food, but in forced moderation. Eventually, though, they would have had enough of it. Also Read: Ozempic, a patent challenge, and the $25 billion race for India's weight-loss drug market Semaglutide and Tirzepatide cannot address the underlying reasons why people eat and overeat. Imagine a pill that makes you want to watch less TV. Let us assume it works. What is the alternative to not wasting time on boring entertainment, an oxymoron that is the reality of the times? Actually, there is something that makes you want to watch less TV, and that's TV itself. Yet, people have nothing better to do. It is the same with food. Without food, life is so dreary to most people that they will eat even if they don't feel like eating. This is something they already do, anyway. Here is what will happen. These drugs will make the fit fitter. People who already work towards health or beauty will be the true beneficiaries of this medical intervention. Others will do things like having only desserts for meals, arguing that they are going to have little to eat anyway. Eventually, they will find ways to malign these drugs. They will have exaggerated complaints about their side effects and romanticize 'natural' hunger. They will insist the body knows best. If it is asking for food, they will say, and if 'nature' is demanding food, then there must be some reason; how can we let 'chemicals' come in the way of natural appetite? Never underestimate the things sugar can make people do. The effectiveness of these drugs raises an interesting question: If suppressing appetite still leaves a person healthy, then is normal eating just a form of overeating? How much food does a person really need? Also Read: Mounjaro in India: The speed bumps impacting access to weight loss drugs Probably far less than what most people eat. Statistically, on any given day, we over-eat or under-eat because, outside of theory, balance is not a real thing. Under-eating has its own risks. Muscle growth, for example, needs protein beyond the reduced consumption these drugs would induce. Strong muscles aren't just about vanity, they help regulate metabolism and maintain our health. Also, when the body faces an energy deficit, it does not simply burn fat. It switches some things off. Based on its own logic and hierarchies, it starts conserving energy by cutting what it considers less important. Like one's immune response. Or skin quality. Or hair health. It adapts to scarcity by becoming stingy with its resources. The same could happen here. People may stay lean but become weak, metabolically and bodily. We may then have unfit people who look thin. We may not understand what's been lost either. That will take years to discover. Also Read: 'We shouldn't use Mounjaro as a way to get skinny': Dr Alexandra Sowa If some people believe they look good just by taking a drug, they may stop working out if they have never enjoyed it. That would be a disaster. Exercise doesn't just burn fat. It does things modern life does not give us. Our true health is not what we appear to be, but what the body knows it has gone through, what it knows it can endure. The author is a journalist, novelist, and the creator of the Netflix series, 'Decoupled'
Mint
5 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Cipla sees weight-loss drugs as the biggest opportunity in the Indian market
Drugmaker Cipla Ltd anticipates GLP-1 drugs, used for treating type-2 diabetes and obesity, to be a definite new therapy in the Indian market, and is exploring a wider foray, said chief executive Umang Vohra. 'The Indian market is particularly important to us, where we're looking at the whole GLP-1 category and not just Semaglutide alone,' Vohra told reporters in a media interaction on Friday after the company declared its June-quarter results. Semaglutide, a GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drug sold under the brand name Wegovy in India by Novo Nordisk, goes off patent in March 2026. 'Our overall thinking is this is going to be pretty definitive in terms of a new therapy, in terms of a new section of the market and an opportunity that will be probably the biggest that we've seen in the last five years,' said Vohra. 'We're trying to evolve a strategy on what would make the most economic sense for us in this category.' The company also plans to launch Semaglutide in other markets where it goes off patent, although Vohra declined to name specific markets. Cipla will file to commercialize the product with partners as well as on its own, in what Vohra called a 'combination strategy'. 'We're going to be perhaps making two filings in some of the markets that are of importance across the world,' he said. The patent for Semaglutide is expiring in countries such as India, Canada, and Brazil in 2026. Cipla's first-quarter profit after tax (PAT) beat estimates, while its revenue was a miss. The company reported a PAT of ₹ 1,298 crore, up 10% year-on-year, against ₹ 1,198.5 crore, estimated by a Bloomberg poll of 22 brokerages. At ₹ 6,957 crore, its consolidated revenue increased 4% on-year but missed Bloomberg estimates of ₹ 7,057 crore. The company reported an Ebitda of ₹ 1,778 crore, up 4% on-year, with its Ebitda margin remaining steady on-year at 25.6%. Ebitda stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. 'Underlying this performance has been the numbers from the One India business, which grew overall at 6% and within that, we've seen a higher growth from our [trade] generics and consumer healthcare business,' said Vohra, adding that branded prescription growth was lower on account of a muted season for acute therapies. The company reported $226 million in revenue from its North America business during the quarter, a drop of 9.6% from the previous year's revenue of $250 million. The North American business accounts for 28% of Cipla's revenues. 'This is in the range that we had guided at the beginning of this quarter…We've had two new launches, and our launch momentum hopes to continue as the rest of the year pans out,' Vohra said. While uncertainty over tariffs and regulatory shifts in the US continues, Vohra said Cipla's business is already significantly derisked. 'Fortunately or unfortunately, because of our facility issues that we've had in the last three years, due to citations at our sites, we had already started de-risking our business. And we built new facilities in the US,' he said. Vohra said while the firm expects some impact from US policy changes, it won't be a debilitating effect that will 'derail the way we've thought about our business'. Cipla also faces price erosion on blood cancer drug Revlimid and Lanreotide, used to treat neuroendocrine tumours, in the US this year. However, Vohra believes that the company has a product pipeline that will continue to drive growth over the next three to five years. Cipla's share price closed at ₹ 1,535.00 on Friday on National Stock Exchange, up 3.17%.
Time Business News
5 days ago
- Health
- Time Business News
Semaglutide Treatment for Weight Loss in Bradenton, FL
Portrait of a happy bearded fitness man measuring his waist with tape isolated on a orange background Losing weight can be a difficult and frustrating journey for many. When diet and exercise alone don't seem to deliver the desired results, medical options like Semaglutide treatment offer a promising alternative. If you are in Bradenton, FL, the Gulf Coast Institute of Rejuvenation provides this advanced treatment designed to help individuals achieve healthier body weight safely and effectively. Semaglutide is a prescription medication originally used to treat type 2 diabetes, but it has gained attention for its ability to support weight loss. It belongs to the group of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which mimic the natural hormone GLP-1 that regulates appetite. By influencing hunger signals in the brain, Semaglutide helps reduce food intake and enhances feelings of fullness, making it easier to stick to a calorie-controlled diet. Semaglutide works by targeting specific brain receptors that control hunger and satiety. When these receptors are stimulated, the desire to eat decreases, which helps reduce calorie consumption. This process supports gradual and steady weight loss. Another benefit of Semaglutide is its ability to improve blood sugar levels. This dual effect makes it particularly helpful for those who have obesity alongside type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. Adults who have a body mass index (BMI) indicating overweight or obesity, particularly with weight-related health issues such as hypertension, diabetes, or sleep apnea, may be suitable candidates for Semaglutide treatment. A thorough evaluation by healthcare professionals is essential to determine if this treatment is right for you. The Gulf Coast Institute of Rejuvenation in Bradenton, FL offers a comprehensive approach to weight management using Semaglutide. Patients begin with a detailed medical assessment, including reviewing their history, current health, and goals. This personalized evaluation helps the medical team develop a tailored treatment plan that includes: Starting Semaglutide at the appropriate dose Nutritional guidance to support healthy eating habits Exercise recommendations to improve physical fitness Regular follow-ups to monitor progress and adjust treatment as needed Semaglutide treatment typically starts at a low dose to minimize side effects, which can include nausea or mild gastrointestinal discomfort. The dose is gradually increased under medical supervision. Patients often notice appetite reduction within a few weeks, which leads to decreased food intake and subsequent weight loss. Consistent monitoring ensures safety and effectiveness throughout the treatment. Semaglutide's advantages extend beyond just losing weight. Many patients experience: Improved blood sugar control Lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels Enhanced energy and overall quality of life Reduced risk of heart disease and other obesity-related illnesses While Semaglutide is effective on its own, its results are best when combined with healthy lifestyle choices. The Gulf Coast Institute of Rejuvenation supports patients with nutrition advice and encouragement to stay active, which strengthens weight loss efforts and helps maintain results long term. Clinical studies have shown Semaglutide to be safe when used as directed. Long-term use is often recommended for sustained weight management but requires regular medical follow-up. Many patients begin to see weight changes within the first month, with gradual and consistent loss over several months. Semaglutide is not suitable for everyone. It is important to discuss your full medical history with a healthcare provider to ensure safety. A balanced diet and regular physical activity are key complements to Semaglutide treatment, maximizing results. Some patients may experience nausea, vomiting, or digestive issues, particularly early in treatment. These typically lessen over time. If you are seeking a medically supervised and effective way to lose weight, Semaglutide treatment for weight loss in Bradenton, FL could be the solution. At Gulf Coast Institute of Rejuvenation, expert care and personalized support create a strong foundation for successful weight management. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Business Upturn
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Upturn
Dr Reddy's stock: CLSA, Jefferies recommend sell, Morgan Stanley says hold — here's why
By Arunika Jain Published on July 24, 2025, 08:40 IST Top brokerages have delivered a mixed outlook on Dr. Reddy's Laboratories following its Q1FY26 results. While Jefferies and CLSA retained their Underperform ratings citing concerns over U.S. business momentum and gRevlimid tapering, Morgan Stanley maintained an Equal-Weight stance with a ₹1,298 target. CLSA: Cautious on U.S. growth taper CLSA kept an Underperform rating with a target of ₹1,120, saying Q1 earnings were in line with estimates. However, it expects the U.S. base business to be flat or grow at low single digits, and noted that gRevlimid sales could start tapering from Q3FY26. The potential launch of Semaglutide in Canada and India may partly offset this slowdown, CLSA added. Jefferies: Q1 miss, watching key launches Jefferies also retained an Underperform rating with a lower target of ₹1,100, citing a Q1 miss due to a decline in U.S. sales, particularly gRevlimid and the base business. SG&A and R&D expenses stayed elevated. However, Jefferies is watching two key pipeline catalysts: the approval of gOzempic in Canada and U.S. filing for Abatacept, which it believes could meaningfully contribute to revenue if launched on time. Morgan Stanley: Balanced view Morgan Stanley took a more neutral stance with an Equal-Weight rating and a target price of ₹1,298. It noted that Q1 revenue grew 11% YoY, but gross margins declined due to higher price erosion and lower operating leverage. EBITDA was in line, while PAT rose 2% YoY. Morgan Stanley believes the risk-reward remains balanced. Disclaimer: The brokerage views expressed above are solely those of the respective firms. This article does not constitute investment advice. Readers are advised to consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Ahmedabad Plane Crash Arunika Jain, a graduate in Mass Communication, brings a fresh perspective to the world of journalism. Arunika has a passion for writing finance and corporate news at You can write to her at [email protected]
