India is launching cheap, weight-loss drugs and Novo Nordisk is betting on

The first wave of generic versions of Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 weight-loss drugs launched in India over the weekend, with at least five domestic drugmakers undercutting the original price by up to 80%. It comes as the Danish drugmaker’s patent expired on Friday, with the company fighting to maintain its lead in the lucrative market. 

India is a critical market, with around 100 million people living with diabetes and nearly a quarter classified as obese. The country is also known as “the world’s pharmacy” with its well-developed generic drugs industry supplying around 20% of global off‑patent medicines. 

Sun Pharmaceutical, one of the top generics manufacturers in the world, on Saturday launched a generic semaglutide for as low as 750 rupees ($8) for a weekly injection, or about 3,400 rupees per month. That compares with Novo’s retail price of between 8,800 and 10,000 rupees in India, depending on the dosage.

Meanwhile, export-focused Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has so far launched semaglutide for treating diabetes at around 4,200 rupees per month and plans to expand to Canada, Turkey and Brazil this year. 

The company’s goal is to democratize access to GLP-1 drugs worldwide, said Deepak Sapra, CEO of Pharmaceutical Services and API at Dr. Reddy’s, at a virtual launch event on Saturday. It’s targeting annual sales of 12 million semaglutide pens in the first year of launch across all markets, including India.

“This is something that Indian generic players have been preparing for a very long time,” Salil Kallianpur, an independent pharma consultant based in India, told CNBC.

More than 50 brands are expected to launch generic versions of semaglutide in the coming months. That’s a small number by Indian standards, because of the relative complexity of making such drugs with their more stringent quality controls, Kallianpur said.

Even as semaglutide remains protected from generic competition in the U.S. – its largest market by far– until 2032, patent expirations in India, Canada, Brazil, and China this year are likely to have a sizable impact on its revenue. In February, Novo warned that sales could decline by 5% to 13% in 2026.

Novo is already facing declining market share amid fierce competition from Eli Lilly and other drugmakers. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pushed for lower drug prices, and a November deal with the administration slashed GLP-1 prices in the country. It is unclear whether higher sales volumes will offset the lower prices.

In December last year, Novo reduced the price of Wegovy by 37% from its launch price in India, before its patent expired, Reuters reported.

Analysts told CNBC that Novo needs to cut prices in India to defend its market share. Vishal Manchanda, a pharma sector analyst at Systematix Group, said that Novo could retain a large share of…