How Mounjaro became India’s second best-selling drug in September

Market intelligence and analytics firm Pharmarack’s monthly data on the Indian pharmaceutical industry’s performance packed a surprise in September. Mounjaro, a branded diabetes and weight management drug from U.S. drug major Eli Lilly, launched just six months ago in March 2025, grabbed the second slot in monthly sales in the domestic market that month. It clocked in ₹80 crore in September, second only to India’s leading brand of the month, GSK’s Augmentin, with a sale of ₹85 crore. Pharmarack’s database shows that Mounjaro has garnered cumulative revenue of ₹233 crore since March, which means, on a trailing 12-month or Moving Annual Total (MAT) basis, it could well become one of the Top 20 Indian drug brands in another six months.

In June, another global blockbuster medicine—Wegovy—in the same GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists) category was launched by Lilly’s competitor, Novo Nordisk, for weight management. GLP-1 receptor agonists were originally developed for managing type 2 diabetes, but several are now also approved for the treatment of obesity, owing to their ability to promote weight loss by reducing hunger and slowing gastric emptying.

The Danish company also secured the Indian drug regulator’s approval to launch Ozempic, prescribed specifically for diabetes patients in September. The coming months will see how the market receives these products. If Mounjaro sales are any indication, GLP-1 drugs, from innovator companies as well as from at least a dozen Indian generic competitors who are readying their low-cost versions, will garner a lot of interest among doctors and patients alike in India.

Wonder why? The answer is simple. The target population for these medicines in India is huge. And it is growing.

The latest India report card on obesity and overweight, published by the Global Obesity Observatory, shows India topped a list of countries in the Asian region in terms of the percentage of adults with insufficient physical activity. An article on ‘dietary profiles and associated metabolic risk factors in India from the ICMR–INDIAB survey-21’, published in the Nature Medicine journal in September 2025, points out that Indian diets are characterised by high intakes of low-quality carbohydrates (white rice, milled whole grains, and added sugar), high levels of saturated fat, and low intakes of protein. Compared to those with the least carbohydrate intake, those with the highest intake had a higher risk of newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Rapid dietary transitions in India have been associated with an alarming rise in cardiometabolic diseases, the research paper, which analyses the data from the national Indian Council of Medical Research–India Diabetes survey (18,090 adults), shows.

According to the International Diabetes Federation’s IDF Diabetes Atlas 2025, China, India, and the USA had the largest numbers of adults, aged 20-79 years, with diabetes last year. India had 89.8 million people with diabetes in 2024, and this is likely to reach 156.7 million by 2050. What is even more alarming is that in absolute terms, 50.5% of all people with undiagnosed diabetes globally are estimated to be living in just three countries—China, India, and Indonesia. As IDF Atlas notes, these three countries are among the four most populous countries in the world and among the Top 5 countries in terms of the number of people with diabetes, thereby compounding the problem.

From this context, the surge of diabetes and obesity medicines does not come as a surprise, but is a predictable signal of what is in store ahead. It is this growing epidemic that fuels chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, creating massive demand for effective solutions like GLP-1 drugs, notes a sector update by equity advisory, Intelsense. The update, which came in May 2025, also states that India’s overall weight management industry today is worth about $25 billion and is set to more than double to $56 billion by 2033. The launch of generic Semaglutide injectables (expected by 2026) could turbocharge the Indian GLP-1 market, making it far more affordable and accessible to millions, it says.

Needless to say, Pharmarack’s monthly data is only picking up an emerging trend.