The pharmaceutical and bio industries' offensive toward the obesity treatment market is getting stronger day by day. It is making all-out efforts to judge obesity as a second "endocrine" market such as diabetes. Domestic pharmaceutical companies are also continuing to move beyond Saxenda and Qsymia, which are active in the domestic obesity treatment market. As it is related to other endocrine markets such as diabetes, pharmaceutical companies are more actively courting endocrine physicians who directly prescribe it, judging it as a market that can never be missed.

According to IQVIA, a drug research institute on the 13th, Saxenda, and Qsymia are still active amid the growth of the obesity treatment market. The growth of Saxenda, which is at the forefront of sales, was remarkable. Sales of Saxenda in the first half of last year were 25.8 billion won, up 55% from the same period last year (16.7 billion won). If this continues until the second half of the year, it is worth expecting sales of more than 50 billion won as a single item.

Qsymia, which used to threaten Saxenda, also recorded sales of nearly 14.2 billion won in the first half of this year, up 10% from 12.9 billion won a year earlier. However, the growth rate is relatively slow compared to Saxenda. Sales of the remaining obesity treatments such as Dietamin and Hutermine have rather slowed down. Focusing on the opening price, it was pointed out that the reason behind the surge in Saxenda sales was the influence of Corona and the cheaper price. Obesity treatment is a representative non-reimbursed market, and the average price of Saxenda has been up to 150,000 won, but recently, 70,000 to 80,000 won has been formed depending on the region, said the internal medicine director, who asked not to be identified.

Hwang Hee-jin, a professor at the International St. Mary's Hospital (Family Medicine), an executive of the DAOR, said, "The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has taken precautions against some doctors as it strengthened the management of psychotropic drugs," stressing, "It has no choice but to affect doctors' prescriptions." Amid the formation of obesity treatments centered on Saxenda and Qsymia, pharmaceutical companies are actively courting clinical field doctors to enter the market. As obesity is the cause of endocrine diseases such as diabetes, various measures are being devised to target endocrine doctors who are in charge of related treatment.

# ICOMES 2022, which was recently held in a hybrid form, also revealed the will of pharmaceutical companies to the treatment market. Although most of the sessions were centered on online viewing, 37 domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies, including Novonordisk Pharmaceutical and Chong Kun Dang, are actively setting up on-site booths and promoting the company's products.

In addition to obesity treatments such as Saxenda, other diabetes treatments or treatment devices such as continuous blood glucose meters were set up to explain the product. In the case of booths by on-site pharmaceutical companies, the ratings were divided and arranged according to the level of sponsorship, according to pharmaceutical company officials who participated on the site. In other words, the higher the sponsorship rating, the better the location in the exhibition hall and the booth was installed.

The pharmaceutical industry called the Obesity Society the "Second Endocrine Society" and evaluated it as a representative domestic society that has grown rapidly in a short period of time. At the same time, it is predicted that pharmaceutical companies' competition to sponsor academic organizations will intensify day by day due to the expansion of the obesity-related treatment market.

Recently, it is specifying strategies for domestic companies to enter the market as well as Lilly's Tirzepatide, which is expected to be a new drug for diabetes and obesity centered on domestic academia.

Starting with Hanmi Pharmaceutical's GLP-1 treatment Efpeglenatide, YH34160 of Yuhan Corporation GLP-1 series is also undergoing preclinical treatment. Kwangdong Pharmaceutical, which has Contrave, recently started joint development of an obesity treatment with QuadMedicine, a microneedle platform company. It is administered with a patch.