Eli Lilly wins first China approval for a GLP-1 weight-loss pill, ahead of Novo Nordisk

A head start in China's second-largest drug market

Eli Lilly became the first drugmaker to win Chinese approval for an oral GLP-1 weight-loss pill on Thursday, 12 November 2026. The tablet, orforglipron, puts the American company ahead of its Danish rival Novo Nordisk in China, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market. Until now Chinese regulators had cleared only injectable GLP-1 medicines for weight management. These drugs mimic a gut hormone that reduces appetite and helps regulate blood sugar in people with diabetes. The class includes Ozempic and Wegovy, the Novo products that Lilly competes with most directly. Lilly believes tablets could win over patients who shy away from needles.

A crowded field of rivals

Orforglipron will compete for market share with Lilly's own once-weekly GLP-1 injection, as well as with injections from Novo, Pfizer and the local company Innovent Biologics. Novo has also applied for Chinese approval of an oral version of its Wegovy injection. Experimental GLP-1 pills from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals and Huadong Medicine are also in the pipeline, according to the reports. According to Handelsblatt, Novo's comparable product has not been cleared in China yet, and Lilly was the first to file its application. Both companies expect pills to attract patients who resist weight-loss injections. The approval gives Lilly the first oral option on the Chinese market, while Novo's oral candidate is still under review.

Demand and forecasts

Oral therapies account for about a third of obesity prescriptions in the United States since Novo launched its Wegovy pill in January this year, according to Novo presentations from September. China's National Health Commission has said the share of overweight or obese people could top 65% by 2030, compared with roughly 50% in 2020. J.P. Morgan's head of China healthcare research, Yang Huang, has forecast that annual sales of GLP-1 weight-management therapies in China may hit 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) within five to seven years. That compares with an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion yuan at present. The chart below sets out the overweight and obesity figures the commission gave.

Roughly 202050%

2030 (projected, more than)65%

Roughly 2020

50 %

2030 (projected, more than)

65 %

Data from the article text

Open questions

Lilly has not said what it will charge for orforglipron in China or when the pill will become available. Novo's oral Wegovy application remains pending, so the two tablets have not been assessed side by side in China. Both companies are betting on tablets to reach patients who avoid injections, but the reports give no figure for how many of those patients exist. Lilly's weekly injection and the new tablet will both be sold by the same company in the same market.