Zealand Pharma unveils its 2030 plan as competition for weight loss heats up

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Zealand Pharma unveiled an ambitious five-year strategy for its anti-obesity portfolio on Thursday, highlighting how growing competition from smaller players is intensifying the race for market leaders Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly as more of these drugs are about to come onto the market.

The new Metabolic Frontier 2030 strategy comes as Zealand’s shares have fallen 29% since the start of the year, as investors bet the market will become fragmented and there will be fewer individual winners than there were 18 months ago at the height of the weight-loss drug rush.

Ahead of its capital markets day on Thursday, the Danish drugmaker said it is now targeting five drug launches, at least 10 clinical pipeline programs and industry-leading cycle times by 2030.

The strategy will combine strategic partnerships, accelerated drug development and expanded research capabilities to build the world’s most valuable metabolic health pipeline, Zealand Pharma said in a statement.

One of Zealand’s most promising drugs in development is petrelintide, which targets the pancreatic hormone amylin – unlike the gut hormone GLP-1, which Novo’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound target. The drug was developed in collaboration with Rochehas shown more moderate side effects than current injectables in early clinical trials.

Medium-term data on petrelintide is expected early next year, while data on its dual GLP-1 agonist called survodutide will be available later in 2026.

Less outstanding winners

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly currently dominate the weight-loss drug market and have a leg up on their competitors because they have developed the only anti-obesity drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But as the market takes shape, more players want a piece of the lucrative business, which analysts say could be worth up to $150 billion annually by the start of the next decade.

As Novo Nordisk shares experience their worst year ever in 2025, down 50% year-to-date, Eli Lilly has become an investor favorite as the Indiana-based company’s Zepbound and Mounjaro lost more weight than Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy. Lilly has also taken the lead in new prescriptions in the US.

On Thursday, Lilly released the first late-stage data on its next-generation weight-loss drug retatrutide. It works differently than existing injections and appears to be more effective because it targets three different appetite-regulating hormones, as opposed to one or two like Wegovy and Zepbound.

Lilly’s stock has held up better as investors believe the company’s pipeline is more likely to produce financial returns, and the company also has a diverse portfolio beyond diabetes and weight loss treatments.

Meanwhile, Zealand’s shares, like Novo’s, peaked in mid-2024, but gains weakened as bets were placed elsewhere. Just last month, the company suspended development of a GLP-1/GLP-2 dual agonist called dapiglutide, saying the obesity drug market was crowded. Instead, Zealand indicated it would focus its resources on candidates with greater potential for clinical differentiation.

Big pharma names like AstraZeneca, Amgen And Pfizer They’re all hoping their own drug candidates will take some of the market share from Lilly and Novo, as will clinical-stage companies Structural therapeutics And Viking Therapeutics.

Morningstar’s Karen Andersen says the market values ​​Lilly but underestimates innovation elsewhere. “While we expect Lilly to maintain a global share of greater than 50% for the foreseeable future, we expect its share to stabilize as Novo and other competitors bring next-generation medicines to market,” she wrote in a November note. “The consensus does not recognize the potential of these drugs.”

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Zealand Pharma shares have fallen by almost a third in 2025

Separately, Seeland announced an agreement with Chinese biotech company OTR Therapeutics to develop oral small molecule treatments for metabolic diseases. Under the agreement, OTR will receive $20 million upfront, an additional $10 million if certain conditions are met, and up to $2.5 billion related to development, regulatory and commercial milestones.

UBS analysts called the partnership “an interesting move.”

“Ahead of a catalyst-rich 2026 with upcoming P3 survodutide trials and P2 petrelintide trials, we will be looking for expectations for these results, commercialization strategy and any information on possible pricing for survodutide, as well as how Zealand sees the potential differentiation of OTR’s small molecule drugs versus other oral GLP-1 drugs that are already nearing market,” the analysts said.

Zealand also announced it will open a new research site in Boston that combines its peptide drug expertise with AI-driven drug discovery.