Ozempic first mover sheds $170B in 4 days: Here's 2 ideas we're backing instead

The GLP-1 trade has been one of the defining themes in healthcare over the last couple of years. But as with any hot trend, leadership shifts, sentiment turns, and valuations catch up to reality.

This week, that reality has come knocking on Novo Nordisk’s (NYSE: NVO) door. After riding the Ozempic and Wegovy wave to more than a US$600 billion market cap, Novo has shed more than US$109 billion (or A$170 billion) over the last four days off the back of a disappointing update. 

Full-year 2025 guidance was cut meaningfully, with sales growth revised down from 13–21% to 8–14%, and operating profit growth slashed from 16–24% to 10–16%. The issues? Slower-than-expected uptake of its GLP-1 franchise, international market drag, and growing pressure from both branded competitors and cheaper compounded alternatives.

Meanwhile, Novo’s primary rival, Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), continues to execute. Their dual agonist, tirzepatide (branded as Mounjaro and Zepbound), has consistently outperformed Novo’s semaglutide on efficacy, tolerability, and patient adherence. 

And they’re not stopping there. Lilly has the deeper bench: an oral GLP-1 (orforglipron) and a triple agonist (retatrutide) showing more than 24% weight loss, all in late-stage development. Despite both names being caught in the broader GLP-1 valuation reset, Lilly’s fundamentals are quietly inflecting upward. They’re gaining prescription share, expanding capacity, and building optionality across multiple obesity assets.

How Minotaur Capital is playing the weight-loss theme 

We’re long Eli Lilly and short Novo – a relative value expression on the same megatrend. In our view, Lilly is winning the battle on all fronts – product, pipeline, and pricing. Novo had the first-mover advantage, but Lilly has staying power.

We’ve also gone one step further with our investment in Chugai Pharmaceutical (TYO: 4519). While most investors fixate on the headline names in GLP-1, we’ve been digging deeper. Chugai, a Japanese pharma company best known for oncology, was flagged by our proprietary AI system, Taurient. It appeared in an article written in Japanese characters and revealed the company’s increasing focus on mid-sized molecule drug discovery. That led us down a rabbit hole, and what we found was one of the most underappreciated obesity pipelines globally.

Chugai developed orforglipron, the oral GLP-1 now licensed to Lilly. Oral GLP-1s are a potential game-changer: they offer similar efficacy to injectable drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, but with the convenience of a daily pill, helping unlock adoption for the masses. With orforglipron now in Phase 3 and showing highly competitive data, Chugai stands to benefit from milestone payments, royalties, and potentially co-commercialisation in Japan.

Chugai is also developing GYM329 – a myostatin-sweeping antibody that could address one of the key drawbacks of weight-loss medications: muscle loss. Patients on GLP-1s lose fat, but also lean mass. That’s especially problematic in elderly or chronically ill populations. If GYM329 works (early data is expected by the end of 2025), it could be the ideal companion drug, boosting the efficacy and safety profile of the entire GLP-1 class. Between orforglipron and GYM329, Chugai has two shots on goal in the obesity ecosystem, plus a broader pipeline of other drugs for other indications.

This is a three-legged trade we have had running for a while – long Chugai, long Lilly, short Novo – but at the core, it expresses a simple view: the GLP-1 revolution isn’t over, it’s just entering Act II: Novo brought GLP-1s to the world but is losing its lead. Lilly is commercialising them better. Chugai might be behind some of the next ones.