Lexaria Bioscience provides update on GLP-1 oral pill market

Lexaria Bioscience (LEXX) provides an update of additional recent developments in the fast-moving glucagon-like peptide-1 oral market. The company said, ” The GLP-1 oral pill sector is growing much faster in 2026 than expected, and faster than the pre-existing GLP-1 injectable sector. The industry’s first-ever GLP-1 pill for weight loss, Wegovy, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration on December 22, 2025 and launched in the US in January 2026. Prior to that, Rybelsus was the only FDA approved GLP-1 drug available in pill form, but it was approved for diabetes control and only used secondarily for weight loss. Within less than the first two months of its launch, Novo Nordisk had disclosed that over 600,000 prescriptions for the Wegovy pill had been written, and will report on its first-quarter sales including the Wegovy pill in May. Both the Wegovy injectable and the Wegovy pill contain the same active drug: semaglutide, with which Lexaria has conducted extensive testing to determine compatibility with Lexaria’s DehydraTECH technology. According to Global Data Healthcare, 51% of the growth in Wegovy revenue between 2026 and 2031 is expected to come from the pill format, with injectable semaglutide expected to reach peak revenue in 2030, when Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy semaglutide franchise is expected to reach $15.9 billion in annual revenue. This will be quite an achievement since 2025 semaglutide revenue derived from Wegovy was 100% in the injectable category, whereas 2031 revenue from Wegovy products is expected to be 17% from pills. As Lexaria’s press release of March 24 noted, TD Cowen raised their previous 2030 sales forecast of the overall GLP-1 sector from $101 billion to $139 billion, Roots Analysis is forecasting sales of $180 billion by 2035, while UBS Investment Bank expects 2029 GLP-1 sales to reach $126 billion. It is not possible to know in advance, what overall portion of the GLP-1 market will be captured by the oral pill format vs. the traditional injectable format; but, if the Wegovy based semaglutide revenue projections are any indication, it could certainly be 17% or higher within a few short years of product launch. In fact, according to a Novo Nordisk executive, oral GLP-1 drugs may account for as much as 33% of the broader GLP-1 market by that time. Based on the various GLP-1 revenue forecasts ranging from $101 billion to $180 billion, this could imply an oral pill sector ranging in size from $17 billion to $60 billion by the mid 2030’s.”