Dr. Ashish Jha talks Novo Nordisk getting approval for Wegovy pill

December 23, 2025 • 3m 1s
? (Reporter) 00:00.110
joining me now is doctor ashish jha he is the outgoing dean of the school of public health at brown university in the former white house covad nineteen response coordinator doctor thank you for joining us today
? (Reporter) 00:12.190
so what do you see just if we can take a step back here is the total addressable market for a pill of GLP one how big ultimately do you think this could be
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 00:22.510
yes first of all thanks for having me back i think this is a big deal and let me explain why i mean more than a hundred million americans have obesity we know these pills are extraordinarily effective for obesity they're very very good or this drug whether it's injectable or or
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 00:34.950
or oral is great for preventing cardiovascular disease liver disease lots and lots of problems
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 00:41.070
about ten to fifteen percent of americans hate injections just hate it will not take an injectable for them this becomes much easier the supply chain here the ability to get it out into pharmacies to get it out to costco all of that is so much much easier with a pill that i see
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 00:56.750
just a lot more americans and people around the world taking an oral version of this drug
? (Reporter) 01:00.830
americans do you think there's a obviously a global market for it as well how do you see the the competitive environment shaping up here
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 01:09.790
yeah so novo goes first lily is not far behind we don't know exactly when lily will get across the finish line but i suspect probably three four months behind behind wegovy you know and novo
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 01:21.120
's job is to try to get as many people signed up as possible because once they're on it and doing fine they're going to be loath to switch so i think you're going to see this very mad rush in the beginning to sign up as many people as possible before lilly comes out with this
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 01:34.440
drug it's possible
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 01:35.560
and i think likely the lilly drug will be a little bit more effective in terms of weight loss but both of them are extraordinary effective at getting people to lose weight and getting all the benefits of that weight loss if
? (Reporter) 01:45.390
you see even just a ten to fifteen percent uptick which you've described as the cohort of people who are loath to use an injection so if you see that that much more uptake here if these drugs work to and reduce obesity and other comorbidities will that drive overall spending on
? (Reporter) 02:04.310
health care down i mean what are some of the best case scenarios here in terms of health care spending in terms of just longevity
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 02:12.750
yeah so those are two separate issues in my mind what's going to happen to healthcare spending and what's going to happen to longevity look if if a lot more people take this there is no question in my mind that we're going to see huge benefits from a health point of view one
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 02:24.030
of the reasons americans live shorter lives than europeans is we have a lot more obesity in this country and if we can cure that through a pill or an injection that's going to have huge downstream benefits from health
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 02:35.110
upfront we're going to pay more upfront these drugs are going to be expensive even if the prices come down it's going to be a new cost to the system so for the first few years i think costs are going to go up but hey health is going to improve and that is really important and
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 02:48.590
hopefully
Ashish Jha (Outgoing Dean) 02:49.070
down the road five ten years down the road we can get some of the benefits in terms of costs as well but this is not a cost play for healthcare this is a health play and i think it's good like as a health person i want to see people live longer healthier lives