Pfizer is positioning itself for what it believes could become a massive consumer-driven market for obesity medicines, comparable to the surge it experienced after launching Viagra more than two decades ago, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Monday.
Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Bourla said the company underestimated how quickly demand for weight-loss drugs would grow outside traditional insurance reimbursement systems when it was negotiating the acquisition of obesity drugmaker Metsera, a deal announced in September 2025.
“At the time, we believed that outside the United States there would be very limited sales because of the lack of reimbursement,” Bourla told reporters. “Now we see that this operates almost like Viagra, where people are willing to pay out of pocket to buy it, even when it is not reimbursed at all.”
The global obesity drug market is currently dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, whose blockbuster therapies have attracted millions of patients willing to pay directly for access. Bourla said that the scale of this cash-pay market has surpassed Pfizer’s initial expectations.
Pfizer knows this type of business well. The company developed and marketed Viagra after its 1998 launch, building a highly profitable franchise before spinning off the business that controls the brand in 2020. Viagra is now sold largely as a generic drug, but it remains one of the most recognizable pharmaceutical brands in the world.
As Pfizer works to rebuild growth following a sharp decline in Covid-19 product sales, obesity drugs have become a central pillar of its long-term strategy. The company has warned investors that revenue growth is unlikely to return before 2029 as it faces patent expirations on key medicines and broader pricing pressure.
To accelerate its push into the weight-loss market, Pfizer agreed to pay up to $10 billion to acquire Metsera after outbidding Novo Nordisk. On Monday, the company announced it plans to launch 10 phase 3 clinical trials of Metsera’s obesity compounds by the end of this year, including one that began in November.
“We are all-in on obesity,” Bourla said. “We have invested heavily, and we have strong capabilities in discovery, development and commercial execution.”
The drugmaker is also navigating an increasingly complex pricing and regulatory environment. Pfizer expects the coming years to be volatile due to expiring patents, falling Covid-19 revenues and price reductions promised to the U.S. government.
It recently became the first major pharmaceutical company to strike an agreement with the Trump administration to lower prices for its prescription drugs in the Medicaid program in exchange for three years of tariff relief.
Bourla said those government agreements, which require companies to offer new medicines in the United States at the same prices charged overseas, could give drugmakers more leverage in negotiations with European governments.
“If you are forced to choose between lowering U.S. prices to France’s level or stopping supply to France, you stop supplying France,” he said. “Otherwise the system makes it impossible for us to sustain innovation at those lower prices.”
With obesity emerging as one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative segments in the pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer is betting that consumer willingness to pay—much like during the Viagra era—will help power its next wave of blockbuster growth.
