The current pain caused by the high cost of the GLP-1 agonist anti-obesity drugs will pass.

Prachi Patkee and other analysts at Swiss Re offer that comfort to insurers, employers and patients in a new report on the impact of the new anti-obesity drugs on the insurance sectors.
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The U.S. patent for semaglutide, the main active ingredient in Wegovy, will expire in 2032, and the U.S. patent for tirzepatide, the main ingredient in Zepbound, will expire in 2036, the analysts write.

"This offers other pharmaceutical manufacturers the opportunity to produce generics, thereby lowering the cost and improving accessibility," the analysts add.

Otherwise, if the drugs continue to be as expensive as they are today, and they continue to cost more than $10,000 per year per patient, the drugs "could exacerbate socioeconomic disparities in mortality outcomes," the analysts warn. "Only wealthier individuals, or those with the ability to pay any additional costs, may gain access to newer weight-loss treatments, potentially increasing health inequalities."

Swiss Re sells reinsurance, or insurance for insurance companies, and its thinking about risks and costs can affect what types of benefits insurers offer.

Patients first began using the main active ingredients in the drugs to control diabetes.

Studies cited in the Swiss Re report show the drugs may also help fight conditions such as cancer, liver disease, chronic kidney disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and the effects of polycystic ovary syndrome on fertility.

If the drugs work as well as researchers hope, they could costs related to sickness, disability and death for issuers of health insurance, disability insurance and life insurance, but insurers will need to watch carefully to make sure that the improvements are real, are not the result of confounding factors and persist after patients who have taken the drugs stop taking the drugs, the analysts write.