2026 is set to be an even bigger year for weight-loss drugs

Pledging to lose weight is a common New Year’s resolution, particularly after the excesses of the holiday season. In years gone by, that would mean a new January diet, early mornings at the gym and a host of other habits that often prove hard to stick to. Which is why it is no surprise that many people give up after a few weeks.

Today, though, there is another option: weight-loss drugs. Rather than relying solely on changing your habits, you can turn to a regular shot of a GLP-1 agonist, or soon, as we detail on page 6, a pill. (Doctors do still recommend combining these drugs with regular exercise.)

Our Sisyphean annual health drive isn’t the only thing GLP-1 drugs are disrupting. Restaurants are creating menus for “Ozempic diners”, reducing portion sizes for people who simply aren’t as hungry as before. Supermarkets have blamed falling sales on people taking the drugs. Airlines are even eyeing up the possibility of reduced fuel costs, as the weight of the average passenger falls.

Of course, it is unclear how much we can actually attribute these changes to GLP-1 drugs, which are still only taken by a small minority, and how much is down to brands jumping on the latest health trend. Yet with obesity affecting 1 billion people worldwide, rates of use are only set to rise. According to a World Health Organization estimate, fewer than 10 per cent of people who could benefit from GLP-1 drugs will have access to them by 2030, but that is still a sizeable chunk of the population.

Still more advanced drugs are coming down the pipeline (see page 7), and their impact could be even larger. That is before we even turn to the many non-weight-loss uses GLP-1 agonists and related drugs are being trialled for, with studies showing the potential for treating everything from addiction to cataracts.

There are still many unanswered questions around long-term effects, what happens when you stop taking them and how to increase access, but prospects are looking rosy. As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, weight-loss drugs look set to shape the future.