The battle between the two weight loss giants has officially entered the deep water period. From clinical PK to production capacity competition, to the future layout competition, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are fighting fiercely. With the advancement of the commercialization of the two giants in China, the new battle has surfaced.

On December 9, the oral version of semaglutide was launched on Meituan's entire network, and at the same time, the reservation service for telpotide was also opened. The first confrontation between the two parties in the Chinese market has once again attracted widespread attention from the market.

This indicates that we can no longer use the perspective of traditional medicine to view GLP-1R drugs that are increasingly closely integrated with consumer medicine. That is, traditional channels such as pharmacies are certainly very critical, but online channels are also becoming more and more indispensable.

Otherwise, Eli Lilly would not have launched its own online medical platform LillyDirect in the United States, and now it has launched an online battle in China.

For the pharmaceutical industry, this is undoubtedly an important trend worthy of attention. It is not difficult to understand why both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly pay great attention to online channels.

The core scenario of GLP-1 application is a complex problem that requires both: patients must have a clear understanding, effective means, and a high-quality diagnosis and treatment system.

Among them, accessibility has become a topic that no one can avoid. Taking weight loss indications as an example, on the one hand, not all hospitals have corresponding obesity clinics, and not all patients know which hospitals can prescribe.

On the other hand, because the approval time for weight loss drugs is limited, it involves the problem of different distribution progress. Some hospitals have drugs and some hospitals do not have drugs, especially now that it is the first launch period of new drugs, and the market supply is already tight. If obese and diabetic patients who are unaware of it crowd into hospitals in large numbers, it will increase the burden on the medical system and increase the energy cost of patients.

Open Xiaohongshu, and there are many notes seeking to buy Novowin or showing appointment records. Of course, some of them are out of love for beauty and weight loss, but there are also patients who are looking for drugs everywhere but have no way to get them. For example, a netizen in Xiaoshan posted a note on Xiaohongshu complaining that he had visited several medical institutions but still couldn't buy it.

This also means that pharmaceutical companies need to reduce the time and energy patients spend looking for drugs within the framework of compliance and make drugs more accessible. In terms of addressing accessibility, the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform is bound to be an unavoidable topic, because it is a more accessible and convenient entry point.

After Novowin started commercialization, due to domestic drug regulatory regulations, Novo Nordisk once stated that the company did not authorize the online sale of the product. Industry insiders pointed out that online imagination is not limited to being a sales channel. The platform has more complete information and data. In the process of helping patients find doctors and drugs, pharmaceutical companies can also better complete user mind training.

On Meituan, patients can currently jump to the column page by searching for keywords.

Then, according to the page display, patients can choose local medical institutions to make appointments for diagnosis and treatment services and keep medicines. Clinics in some areas also support cold chain delivery of medicines. A netizen with an IP in Beijing started updating his experience of losing weight with Novowin on Xiaohongshu at the beginning of the month, and he completed the reservation service through Meituan.

From the above process, it is not difficult to find that the medical e-commerce platform can solve two problems for patients: first, it solves the confusion of many patients who do not know which medical institution to go to; second, the large official subsidies further save patients' drug purchase costs and improve efficiency.

It is for this reason that the first confrontation between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in the domestic market reflects the characteristics of channel diversification. From Novotai to Novowin, and then to the oral version of Simei, it can be said that the "GLP-1 family bucket" has been distributed by both pharmaceutical companies, whether in designated authorized pharmacies or DTP pharmacies with more innovative formats; at the same time, the medical e-commerce platform has also become a must-fight place.

The medical e-commerce platform has become a must-fight place, which is in line with the current trend of industrial development, especially for weight loss drugs.

On the one hand, this is a channel that is more in line with the consumption habits of weight loss drug patient groups.

Young people are the main consumer of weight loss drugs. In recent years, the obesity rate among young people in China has continued to rise, and diabetes has also shown a trend of becoming younger. With the habit of drinking milk tea every day and staying up late every day, both semaglutide and telpotide are products that have received a lot of attention on social media.

Therefore, in order to adapt to their consumption habits, it is necessary to break through the limitations of traditional drug marketing and more easily influence their consumption decisions. The medical e-commerce platform is in line with this concept.

For example, as a life service platform, Meituan's user group has a wide age span. According to media data, the most active users who placed orders for the first batch of "oral version of semaglutide" are concentrated in middle-aged men, and people over 35 years old are as high as 53%, especially those aged 40-50, who are actively "shopping" for weight loss. In addition, the young patients mentioned above, especially those born in the 1990s and 2000s, also account for a large proportion of Meituan's users.

On the other hand, this is also more in line with the development trend of Chinese patients buying medicines.

In fact, it is not just young people. With the promotion of a series of factors such as more convenience, online price comparison, and medical insurance support, online drug sales have long become a general trend. In 2023, the retail scale of pharmaceutical e-commerce will be 306.4 billion yuan, and the online share will increase from 15.7% in 2019 to 33% in 2023. At this growth rate, it will soon enter a situation where online and offline sales will be 50-50.

Under the clear trend, Meituan has both O2O services such as "30-minute home delivery of medicines" and e-commerce services such as "cheaper express delivery", and is one of the most recognized platforms in the market.

Driven by both internal and external factors, from Novo Nordisk's Novowin to Novoxin, and then to Tilpotide, their first appointments are actively open to pharmaceutical e-commerce platforms such as Meituan, JD.com, and Alibaba.

The effect is also obvious. According to Wall Street Journal, on December 9, the night when the oral version of Sime was first launched on Meituan, the instantaneous search volume of Sime-related products doubled compared with the previous day, and the next day "Simeglutide" ranked among the top three real-time hot search terms for Meituan's drug purchases.

For pharmaceutical companies, the main battlefield for prescription drugs is still in hospitals, but good products combined with good channel promotion strategies can indeed achieve twice the result with half the effort.

In view of the development trend, the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform is undoubtedly a beneficial supplement to the weight loss drug channel and a part of the refined channel strategy. Of course, it is still far from the end, and both pharmaceutical companies and platforms need to continue to explore on this road.

First, how to match patient needs more accurately and timely?

Compared with offline channels, the Internet is indeed a more accurate channel. However, for the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform itself, accurate matching services are still a relatively new topic.

Especially at present, industry insiders analyzed that under the weight loss craze, the demand for related drugs on the market is greater than the supply, and the current drug reservation system is mostly used in pharmacies, clinics, and designated physical examination institutions.

This also requires that the platform can update the complete and comprehensive supply situation in a timely manner to reduce the time and energy of patients looking for drugs to a greater extent. For example, the advantage of Meituan buying medicine lies in the "immediacy" of information and fulfillment.

Second, how to improve diagnosis and treatment services more comprehensively?

The provision of weight loss drugs is not just a simple process of providing products, but requires comprehensive consideration of two factors:

On the one hand, different patients have different physiques, health conditions and weight loss needs; on the other hand, weight loss groups are highly differentiated, not only in terms of physical level, but also in terms of health awareness, economic conditions, etc., so the pursuit of health is also different. Specifically, for example, some groups hope that institutions will provide more comprehensive health services while losing weight.

Therefore, Internet platforms need to provide more comprehensive choices, thereby bringing more groups to improve the experience of diagnosis and treatment services. Perhaps this is also the core reason why weight loss giants have bet on third-party platforms such as Meituan, or built their own online medical platforms.

As a local life platform, Meituan can link more abundant resources. Amino Observation tested the ordering process and found that in Beijing Wangjing area, Meituan can provide services from multiple medical institutions including Aikang Guobin, and the service packages of institutions are also based on different health needs. There are more choices, which can cover as many patients with weight loss needs as possible and provide a more complete set of solutions.

This also means that because of the comprehensive services, online platforms will naturally have a series of advantages: for example, transparent comparison, patients can choose convenient and fast ways to get medicine, or find the nearest clinic in the same city to experience offline health management services.

In general, how to improve comprehensive service capabilities to better serve Chinese weight loss patients is far from the end. This requires pharmaceutical companies and platforms to work together to continue to explore and improve.

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