Overview of GLP-1 weight-loss maintenance
- GLP-1 users often regain weight after stopping treatment entirely
- Food companies are developing products supporting post-GLP-1 weight maintenance
- Typical one-year discontinuation rates range between 36% and 65%
- Discontinuation remains common, especially among users without diabetes
- Oral GLP-1s may reduce demand for maintenance-focused products
GLP-1s are popular because they help consumers achieve weight loss.
By switching off ‘food noise’, the mind’s constant churn of food-related thoughts, GLP-1 drugs give users far greater control over how much food they consume.
But what happens when consumers stop using the drugs? Once the food noise returns, many people put back on the weight that they lost.
Can the food industry meet the demand for maintenance?
Any brand or product that can help consumers maintain this weight loss would be likely to thrive, suggests Caroline Young, head of insights at the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).
“Weight maintenance will always be the long term goal after weight loss, so whilst GLP-1s are solving an immediate problem, long-term the industry needs to make it easier for post-GLP-1 users to keep the weight off.”
There are a number of ways that the food industry could respond to this, suggests Young.
Introducing new products is one. But recipes, meal inspiration and nutrition guidance could also help consumers, suggests Young.
Furthermore, services like apps or subscriptions could be introduced to help consumers manage weight loss once ‘food noise’ returns.
Companies are already developing products that are geared towards consumers moving away from weight-loss drugs.
Nestlé, for example, has developed proprietary combinations of ingredients that can suppress appetite, which are aimed specifically at consumers who are coming off the drugs. US health and fitness company the Robard Corporation has produced Biocare2, a beverage aimed at helping to reduce the appetite once consumers are off GLP-1s.
Could weight-loss maintenance lead to GLP-1 decline?
While GLP-1s are resoundingly popular, the difficulty in maintaining weight loss after use means that they are, at least if users come off them, often only a temporary solution. Could this damage the market’s appeal?
This is unlikely, suggests James Watson, partner and head of manufacturing for food and drink SME at consultancy Argon & Co. “We should expect some levels of churn and the market to become more segmented rather than a decline.”
One-year discontinuation rates of between 36% and 65% are typical, according to Watson, and at the higher end for users who don’t have diabetes.
Yet because of weight regain, many people are staying on the drugs permanently rather than abandoning them as a solution altogether.
“Regain is also the strongest clinical argument for staying on treatment, and it is shifting the framing from ‘course’ to ‘chronic therapy’,” says Watson.
Such problems are unlikely to impact the GLP-1 boom, Watson concludes.
Oral GLP-1s could boost permanent uptake
The introduction of oral GLP-1s makes it easier for users to stay on the drugs permanently. In fact, says Michel Savini, associate partner for life sciences SME at Argon & Co, this was one of the commercial bets behind them.
“Pills remove quite a few of the frictions that make long-term use hard: no needles, no sharps disposal, no cold chain and a lower price entry point.”
A lot of people take daily pills already, he says; pills which they have accepted that they will take indefinitely. Injections, on the other hand, often feel more like a finite treatment with an eventual end-point. This puts GLP-1 pills in a good position compared to injections.
Pills do not solve all GLP-1 problems. “There are some frictions that pills do not help with; for example, gastrointestinal side effects, which can be higher with orals, which is the second largest driver of discontinuation.”
Furthermore, many users, whether on pills or injections, will simply stop when they hit their weight target. This, says Watson, is more of a mindset challenge than a product one.
Yet the mass uptake of pills will likely make permanent use easier, potentially mitigating demand for products or services that aim to help prevent weight regain.
Weight-loss maintenance: The next frontier
Weight-loss maintenance could well be next frontier in GLP-1 innovation. Large companies are increasingly developing products aimed at helping users who are getting off the drugs without gaining weight.
And many users do stop using the drugs; the data reflects clearly that at least a third of users stop after only a year, and this percentage is higher when those with diabetes are not considered.
Yet on the flip-side, innovations in GLP-1s themselves, such as the introduction of the pill, make it easier to stay on the drugs permanently. In the future, such weight-loss maintenance products could be made less relevant by this.
