Olympic Mania: How Losing Weight is Changing the Economy.
Losing weight without diet or exercise is a dream on which pharmaceutical companies make tens of billions of dollars.
The main symbol of this era is Ozampic. It has become a pop-cultural phenomenon: stars promote the slimming trend with sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes, celebrities show "before and after" (Elon Musk, for example), social networks accelerate the demand.
But the side effects and medical limitations in such stories often remain behind the scenes.
How did it all start? Ozempi was originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes. Its active ingredient, semaglutide, mimics the GLP-1 hormone, helps control sugar, slows down stomach emptying and reduces appetite.
Weight loss became another benefit that became its own market. This is how Vogobi was born from Novo Nordisk and Zepbound from Eli Lilly. Many Russian analogues followed them. Examples are in the table.
How much does it cost to lose weight? A package of Terceta 15 mg (there are different ones) for 4 injections costs about 20,300 rubles. One injection before the holiday will not get you down: the treatment can be long. A year at the maximum dose is 243,600 ₽, excluding doctors and tests.
But after stopping the treatment, many patients partially return to their weight. Other side effects were not eliminated either.
Business "on the masses" in Russia:
The market for slimming drugs will reach 44.6 billion rubles in 2025 - a 2.5-fold increase.
In the first nine months of 2026, sales of semaglutide and tiraceptide alone in pharmacies reached 80.5 billion rubles.
During the year, the Russians purchased about 14 million packages of weight control drugs.
But the excitement is fading. Therefore, manufacturers are looking for new markets and studying the use of their drugs for liver, kidney, heart diseases, sleep apnea, alcoholism and smoking.
The economy is also changing. According to PwC, in the US, GLP-1 users started spending 5.5% less on groceries, 8.7% less on fast food and 22.2% less on pizza.
But spending on clothing increased by 9.9%.