Photo Illustration of the new Wegovy semaglutide tablets with injectable prescription weight loss medicines, Ozempic, Victoza and Wegovy. Its a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and physical activity. (Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

They’ve not yet begun to fight, or insert your John Paul Jones paraphrase here. At the very least, success begets success. What this means in the weight-loss space is that Wegovy, Foundayo, Ozempic and others are the beginning of powerful advances in weight-loss technology, not the end.

It speaks to the genius of profits. They create the resources and the credit necessary to pursue new advances.

Think retatrutide. The New York Times describes this creation of Eli Lilly as “the most powerful weight-loss drug in development.” And while it’s “not expected to hit the U.S. market before next year,” the extraordinary popularity of the drug in pre-release form speaks volumes about what’s ahead in weight-loss advances.

That’s because consumers are already in hot pursuit of what’s not yet on the market. There’s only supply of retatrutide “for research purposes only” that is finding its way to consumers eager to access the drug before it’s legally available. About this development, readers can decide whether they approve or disapprove.

What matters is that in already feverish demand for retatrutide, we can detect yet another market signal. Specifically, that the weigh-loss drugs of the future will seemingly eclipse what came before them, thus the pre-FDA approval demand for them.

It recalls the success of the Echo devices at Amazon. Jeff Bezos was said to be thrilled at the time because the popularity of the device would free up more cash and create more credit (yes, credit is created) for more product development at Amazon. Progress is costly, which is why as previously mentioned, success begets success.

Back to retatrutide, it’s interesting to contemplate what will potentially follow it. As is well known in commerce, stasis is the path to obsolescence. Thought of through retatrutide, if it prospers as expected, the clock will start ticking for Eli Lilly in the sense of what’s next.

It’s what’s next that investors reward, which means right as retatrutide is released assuming approval, or soon after, investors will want to know what will follow.

Hopefully the desires of investors will catch the eyes of politicians. Politicians have a tendency to make promises that they can’t deliver on. They promise cheaper healthcare, and to “bend the healthcare cost curve” downward. They can do no such thing.

The only way to reduce the cost of what improves and saves lives is through intrepid investment in a commercial future that by definition is opaque. Put another way, the path to cheaper, life-improving and life-saving drugs is paved with enormous costs, and frequently failure along the way.

Consider this given the thunderous lines from politicians about “cost curves,” not to mention the badgering of drug companies with threats about “Most Favored Nation” pricing. Price controls, like cost curves, make it too costly for businesses of any kind to advance.

Which is why the political class will ideally cheer advances made in the pharma space, while also recognizing what enables the advances: the ability of pharmaceutical firms to profit from the rare achievements. Without the profits, there will be no investment that makes the achievements possible.

Back to retatrutide, for now it’s the future of weight loss. Just the same, let’s hope it’s not the frontier of weight loss. It won’t be if it’s accepted by lawmakers that progress, while very expensive, is more than worth it.