Novo Nordisk spent nearly $500 million on US ads for Wegovy and Ozempic in nine months
The spending gap shows how hard Novo is pushing its GLP-1 drugs in a US market where insurance coverage is uneven and many patients pay cash.
Novo Nordisk spent nearly $500 million advertising Wegovy and Ozempic in the United States in the first nine months of 2025, more than double what Eli Lilly spent on its rival GLP-1 medicines, according to advertising-tracking data from MediaRadar reported by Reuters [1].
Novo spent an estimated $316 million advertising Wegovy, its semaglutide weight-loss drug, and $169 million on Ozempic, its semaglutide diabetes drug, from January through September 2025 [1]. Those figures were up 54% and 44%, respectively, from the same nine months in 2024 [1]. Combined, the two products accounted for about $487 million in US ad spending [1].
Eli Lilly, which makes the tirzepatide drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, spent an estimated $214 million on US ads for those medicines over the same period [1]. That included about $131 million for Zepbound, up from $2 million in the same months of 2024, and $83 million for Mounjaro [1]. Novo's total was more than double Lilly's [1]. Both companies declined to comment on their advertising budgets [1].
The increase followed a shift in supply. David Moore, Novo's executive vice president of US operations, said the company halted advertising during the GLP-1 shortages of 2024 and ramped spending back up in 2025 as supply improved [1]. Separately, Lilly released data in late 2024 showing that patients taking Zepbound lost 47% more weight than those given Wegovy in a large head-to-head trial [1].
"When it comes to weight loss, Lilly has that edge with Zepbound, which is why, likely, Novo is looking to offset that with higher advertising investments," said Rajiv Leventhal, senior analyst for digital health at the market research firm Emarketer [1].
Prescriptions reflect that competition. US prescriptions for Zepbound overtook Wegovy last year, giving Lilly about 60% of the US obesity drug market for 2025, according to IQVIA data shared by a Wall Street analyst [1]. IQVIA did not respond to a request for comment [1].
The GLP-1 spending sits inside a larger US advertising market. AbbVie spent more than $850 million advertising its arthritis drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq in the first nine months of 2025 and declined to comment [1]. The United States is unusual in allowing direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, a system that has been criticized as driving up already high US medical costs [1]. President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have tried to discourage drugmaker advertising with new disclosure rules [1].
Novo and Lilly have also had to deal with telehealth companies selling compounded copies of their drugs. Those sellers could offer their versions freely while the branded products were in short supply, and have since turned to selling personalized doses that differ from the branded products in dose size and regimen [1].
Why it matters for patients
Advertising influences what patients recognize and ask about, but it does not set what these drugs cost or whether insurance pays for them. Coverage for GLP-1 drugs in the US is uneven, which leads many people to pay out of pocket [1]. Moore said Novo plans to advertise its new pill version of Wegovy immediately and push sales through its cash-pay, direct-to-consumer channels [1].
Rae McMahan, senior vice president of payer solutions at Prescryptive, which helps patients find the lowest prices for drugs at pharmacies, said advertising has limits when it comes to treatment decisions for GLP-1 drugs. "It's still a conversation that needs to be between the patient and their physician," she said [1].
Ads also do not carry the kind of comparative clinical detail that Lilly published in late 2024, when it reported that Zepbound patients lost 47% more weight than Wegovy patients in a head-to-head trial [1].
What happens next
How much Novo plans to spend advertising the new Wegovy pill has not been disclosed [1]. Moore said the company intends to advertise the pill immediately [1]. The timing of the federal advertising disclosure rules pushed by Trump and Kennedy has not been reported [1].
Sources
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