How Ozempic & Wegovy Could Benefit Airlines

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The medical community was put on its ear a while back, when the news got out.

Ozempic, an injectable drug prescribed for the treatment of type-2 diabetes, had a side effect of significant weight loss. It was first approved for use in 2017. Wegovy, also an injectable medication, was approved in 2021 to treat obesity. Rybelsus is similar to Ozempic, but is in pill form. Both are brand names for a medication called Semaglutide. Here’s a quick history about it, from my-bmi.co.uk:

Semaglutide is a type of medication called a GLP-1 Receptor Agonist, a group of medicines that work by affecting the hormones produced by your pancreas.

Semaglutide was originally created in 2012 to help patients with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.

When testing was conducted during the earlier stages of developing this medication many patients noticed that they were losing weight as well as treating their condition.

This revelation is what made scientists consider investigating and manufacturing Semaglutide for weight loss and eventually bringing it to our pharmacies.

Semaglutide is available in 3 forms at the moment, Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus.

Put into its simplest terms, the semaglutide decreases hunger.

Needless to say, in this country, where 73.6% of adults age 20 and over are overweight (body mass index (BMI) over 25), 41.9% are clinically obese (BMI over 30), a weight loss drug like Wegovy become VERY popular, VERY quickly. And, of course, being overweight/obese puts you at a higher risk of having type II diabetes (right now there are over 37 million Americans with diabetes [about 1 in 10 people] and roughly 90-96% of them have type 2), which makes Ozempic and Rybelsus more popular.

Novo Nordisk is the only company in the U.S. that has FDA-approved products containing semaglutide, and they haven’t been able to keep up with the demand.  There’s a national shortage. All 3 drugs – Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus – are frequently on backorder. That puts them in the headlines more often, which, in turn, makes more people aware of the drugs. And then when the likes of Elon Musk, Boris Johnson, Amy Schumer, Charles Barkley and Sharon Osbourne have all said they’ve used one or more of the drugs, that also makes it more popular.

Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk says they think they can have enough of the drug available to those with prescriptions for it by 2024.

So what do diabetes and/or weight loss drugs have to do with airlines?

Weight.

You know where I’m going with this, right?

Planes, of course, need fuel to fly. And the lighter the plane, the less fuel it uses (fuel is about 25% of the expense of flying a plane). That’s why, over the years, airlines have figured out all sorts of crazy ways to reduce weight on each flight, to help reduce the amount of fuel it uses.

So can you imagine how much money airlines would save if a certain amount of their passengers weighed significantly less?

According to Bloomberg, Sheila Kahyaoglu, a Jefferies Financial analyst, estimated in a recent report on the implications of a “slimmer society” that United Airlines Holdings Inc. would save about US$80 million a year if the average passenger weight fell by 10 pounds. From Bloomberg:

If the average passenger lost 10 pounds, this would trim 1,790 pounds from every United flight, implying a savings of 27.6 million gallons (104.5 million litres) a year, the analyst estimated. At an average 2023 fuel price of $2.89 a gallon, United would save $80 million a year. That equates to 20 cents of earnings per share, she said.

“This benefit should be recognised similarly across airlines,” Kahyaoglu wrote.

If airlines were betting people, they should put their bets on Novo Nordisk. 😉

Feature Image (cropped): Chemist4U / flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED (old)

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