Invest1 publisher3 min readPublished
Hanmi's Cheaper Obesity Drug Eppe Could Undercut Lilly's Mounjaro More Than Novo's Wegovy
Hanmi Pharmaceutical's Eppe could launch in Korea before year-end at an estimated 150,000 won for four weeks, 45% below Mounjaro's cheapest listing. Lilly won about 85% of the market at a higher price than Wegovy, so Novo, which has cut once already, is the likelier incumbent to cut again.
The Investor · Invest desk
Drafted by a language model from the sources cited here and checked against its claim ledger before publication. How we use AISend a correction
What happened
- Novo cut Wegovy's Korean wholesale prices by roughly 10% to 44% before Mounjaro launched there in August last year, ending a uniform 372,000 won price.
- Hanmi says Eppe produced average weight loss of 9.75% after 40 weeks in a Phase 3 trial of 448 Korean adults.
- IQVIA says the Korean obesity-drug market grew to 819.5 billion won last year, more than three times its 2024 size of 242.6 billion won.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- precedent Lilly's own launch took about 85% share at a starting price 62,000 won above Wegovy's, so its history gives it reason to compete on efficacy before it competes on price.
- constraint Eppe's trial result trails the incumbents' headline figures, so a discount alone will move fewer existing patients, and Hanmi's growth depends more on new patients in a fast-growing market.
- cost At starting-dose prices, a patient on Eppe would spend about 1.59 million won less than one on Mounjaro over 13 four-week cycles.
A price war needs incumbents who believe price moves prescriptions, and Korea has run that test once already. Ahead of Mounjaro's arrival in Korea last August, Novo Nordisk lowered Wegovy's wholesale prices by between roughly 10% and 44%, depending on dose, from a uniform 372,000 won for four weeks [6]. That took the 0.25 mg starting dose to 210,000 won [7], a 43.5% cut [5]. BRP Insight put Mounjaro's share of the market at about 85% in August, against Wegovy's 8% [5]. Eli Lilly built that share while charging more. Mounjaro's cheapest four-week listing on the My Doctor platform is 272,000 won, 62,000 won above Wegovy's [3][3]. The pricier drug holds about 10.6 times the cheaper one's share [4].
Set against those listings, the industry estimate of about 150,000 won for a four-week supply [2] puts Eppe 45% below Mounjaro, a gap of 122,000 won per cycle [1], and 29% below Wegovy, a gap of 60,000 won [2]. Over 13 four-week cycles the Mounjaro gap comes to about 1.59 million won [8]. Both comparisons use starting doses and an estimate. Hanmi has not disclosed Eppe's final price or its dosage structure [4].
Novo is in the tighter position. Wegovy's cheapest listed consumer price at 0.25 mg is the same 210,000 won Novo set as its wholesale price for that dose [9], although the Korea Herald says the wholesale and consumer figures are distinct [8]. If 150,000 won turns out to be a consumer price, Novo would need a starting-dose wholesale price about 60% below the old uniform 372,000 won to match it [6]. It has already given up as much as 44% per pack once [6], and it holds 8% of the market [5]. Lilly would have to give up 45% at the starting dose [1].
One outcome is that Hanmi prices near the estimate and grows mostly on patients new to treatment, in a market IQVIA says reached 819.5 billion won last year, about 3.4 times its 2024 size [12][7], and nobody cuts. A second has Novo cutting again to defend its 8% while Lilly holds. In the third, Lilly cuts, and price turns out to matter more to Mounjaro's patients than its share history shows.
Eppe's trial data limits how many existing patients a discount alone can move. Hanmi says the drug, whose active ingredient is efpeglenatide [13], produced average weight loss of 9.75% after 40 weeks in a Phase 3 trial of 448 Korean adults [9]. That is below the headline figures from the incumbents' pivotal trials, although the studies differed in populations, duration and dosing and cannot be compared directly [10]. Hanmi plans to make Eppe in Korea [11].
I think the next Korean price cut, if Eppe forces one, comes from Novo. The counter-case is that Lilly has the most revenue exposed to a cheaper drug in a market that more than tripled in a year [12], and an 85% share is a single month's reading [5]. The Korea Herald report does not include either company's Korean revenue or margins, so the margin pressure on Lilly and Novo cannot be measured from it. A cut to Mounjaro's starting-dose price within months of Eppe's launch would prove this view wrong.
What to watch
- Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approval and Hanmi's final price and dose schedule; a launch price well above 150,000 won would close most of the 60,000 won gap to Wegovy.
- BRP Insight's monthly share figures after launch, and whether Eppe's gains come out of Wegovy's 8% or Mounjaro's 85%.
- Any new Novo wholesale schedule for Wegovy's 0.25 mg and 0.5 mg doses, now 210,000 and 220,000 won.