Obesity Drugs Delivered to Your Door in 30 Minutes at One-Third the Price

[Anchor]

As the obese population in China surges, the market for obesity treatments is heating up. Intense competition among pharmaceutical companies has driven prices down to one-third of what they are in South Korea.

Beijing correspondent Choi Go-un reports.

[Reporter]

This is a popular shopping app in China.

I will now attempt to purchase an injectable obesity treatment through this app.

Searching for the active ingredient of the obesity injection brings up numerous sellers.

Once you select the desired dosage, you are connected to an online consultation, and an electronic prescription is issued in just one minute.

Exactly 30 minutes after placing the order, a delivery person arrived with a cold-storage box.

[Delivery person for the Chinese shopping app: (Are you from 00? Does this need to be refrigerated?) If you are not using it right now, it must be kept refrigerated.]

After the delivery is complete, a pharmacist calls to provide detailed instructions, ranging from how to use the injection to dietary advice.

[Pharmacist linked to the Chinese shopping app: To prevent side effects, do not increase the dosage too quickly. To lose weight without losing muscle mass, you must consume enough protein. Eat two to three eggs every day.]

The authenticity of the product can be easily verified via a barcode.

[Choi Go-un/Correspondent: As you can see, it displays that the medication is a verified, authentic product. It also shows information that only one person has checked this barcode, meaning I am the only one.]

The total cost, including the prescription, medication, and delivery fee, was 459 yuan.

That is about 100,000 won in Korean currency, which is one-third the price of the same dosage in South Korea.

It is even cheaper if you visit a pharmacy in person.

[Phone call to a pharmacy selling obesity treatments: What dosage do you need? (10mg.) It is 324.1 yuan (approximately 74,000 won).]

Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, the maker of Mounjaro—which are competing for the top two market shares—have significantly lowered their prices to maintain their presence in China.

This is because the patent for Wegovy in China has expired, leading Chinese pharmaceutical companies to rush to launch generic versions.

It is projected that by 2030, the proportion of the overweight or obese population in China will exceed 70% of all adults, and price competition among pharmaceutical companies to capture the world's largest obesity market is expected to intensify further.

(Reported by Choi Deok-hyun | Video by Lee Seung-yeol)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.