Alice Han

But in April, Beijing launched actually a nationwide weight management campaign to address what it called a major public health threat.

So this has taken, I think, a political element now, and I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up as part of the five-year plan, because this has massive implications as well for the economy.

I mean, think about the increasing healthcare costs that it will create.

for the nation.

But it also, I think, is so different from how people think of China.

The other element of this is the commercial element.

So there's a lot of talk about GLP-1 being in pill form this year, how that will drastically reduce prices for the access to these weight loss drugs.

China currently has GLP-1 drugs that sell for about 385 to 685 US dollars.

I think that's about half of what it costs in the US.

But obviously, if China has this flood of new drugs entering the market, which are currently under trial, this could massively push down prices in China and potentially even globally.

And there are a couple that I thought looked interesting.

There's Mazdatide, and that's created by Innovent Biologics in Suzhou.

There's another injectable, biweekly injectable, GLP-1 by UBT251.

There's a Hong Kong pharmaceutical company that's doing a once-daily oral drug called ASC30.

And apparently there are over 60 GLP-1 drug candidates that are going late-stage clinical trials in China.

And they could, I think, directly compete with Eli Lilly, for instance, and Novo Nordisk.

But one last point that I thought was really interesting.

Novo Nordisk actually won a legal case with the Supreme Court in China to uphold its patent of semaglutide, which is used in its GLP-1 drug.

And that's used for diabetes and weight loss.

So potentially that gives it a bit of a moat in China and elsewhere.