Novo Nordisk has sued Eli Lilly over advertising that compares the effectiveness of the two companies’ blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs.
In a lawsuit filed on July 21 in federal court in New Jersey, the Danish drugmaker accused its American rival of relying on outdated studies to promote its GLP-1-based medications Mounjaro and Zepbound as more effective than Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy.
In one Lilly television ad cited by Novo, a voiceover and on-screen text state that people taking Zepbound lost an average of about 50 pounds, compared with 33 pounds for those taking Wegovy. Those figures come from a trial in which participants receiving maximum tolerated doses of Zepbound—10 mg or 15 mg—were compared with peers using Wegovy doses of 1.7 mg or 2.4 mg. …