Obesity is a key public health concern and a leading risk factor for other lifestyle-related illnesses in Australia. Currently, four key pharma companies offer marketed therapies for the treatment of obesity. However, digital support is limited to just Novo Nordisk and iNova Pharmaceuticals. Against this backdrop, other key players in Australia’s obesity market have significant scope to strengthen their digital presence, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Reportedly, the number of adults living with obesity in Australia has doubled in the last 10 years, with more than 60% of adults classed as overweight or obese in 2019. This number is expected to reach around 75% by 2030. In addition, Australia had the sixth highest proportion of overweight or obese population aged 15 and above among the 22 OECD member countries in 2019. Furthermore, the economic impact is also huge with obesity accounting for approximately AUD12 billion of Australia’s annual health expenditure in 2018.

Key players, including Novo Nordisk (Saxenda), iNova Pharmaceuticals (Contrave), GSK (Alli) and Roche (Xenical) offer marketed therapies for the treatment of obesity. However, GlobalData’s ‘Digital Marketing Intelligence’ platform identified branded digital support only for Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda (Saxendacare.com.au and Saxenda.pharmaprograms.com.au) and iNova Pharmaceuticals’ Contrave (Contrave.com.au). Of these branded websites, Saxendacare.com.au is intended for both patients and HCPs while the other two websites target only HCPs.

Neha Myneni, Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “There is a significant gap from the stakeholders point-of-view for a disease with such huge impact on both individual as well as economic levels. Although branded support is available for newer therapies like Saxenda and Contrave, a huge gap is observed in the unbranded space from all the key players.

“Unbranded resources and mobile apps could support those living with obesity to improve their lifestyle choices or address any psychological issues that may be causing this weight gain Furthermore, there is a lack of support through other digital media like social media.”

An analysis of traffic for these  websites over the last 12 months (February 2021 to January 2022) reveals the highest traffic has been to Novo Nordisk’s Saxendacare.com.au (~70,000 visits). Traffic to other branded websites stood at ~28,500 visits for Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda.pharmaprograms.com.au and less than 5,000 visits for iNova Pharmaceuticals’ Contrave.com.au.

Myneni concludes: “Key players operating in the obesity market are currently offering branded support alone for patients and HCPs. Investing on disease awareness initiatives such as campaigns and a focus on cross-channel support could strengthen their overall presence in the market.”