By Prerna Bedi
(Reuters) – British medical products maker Smith+Nephew said weight-loss drugs could help previously ineligible overweight patients get approval for joint replacement surgery, playing down concerns about the impact of the new therapies on its business.
Concerns have grown that healthcare companies, including Smith+ Nephew that treat obese and overweight patients for knee-related issues, will be hurt by powerful new obesity drugs known as GLP-1s like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.
“As patients presumably benefit from GLP-1, you could actually see some of these patients who are previously ineligible for joint replacement become eligible for that surgery,” CEO Deepak Nath told Reuters in an interview.
Nath’s comments echoed that of Johnson & Johnson last month, which said more patients could be eligible for orthopaedic surgeries, potentially helping offset lower demand for bariatric surgery.
“We don’t see a significant impact that meaningfully changes either our addressable market or our organic growth rate,” Nath added, although he could not say what the net impact would be in the longer run.
In early October, he said that although the long-term effect is unclear, GLP-1s would not have much impact in the five years to come as obesity will remain a key driver for joint replacements.
The company’s shares were up more than 5% at 1018 GMT, set for their best day in more than a year as its optimistic outlook reassured investors about possible GLP-1 damage. They have lost about 13% of their value so far this year.
Some analysts and market players have argued that weight-loss drugs, although highly effective, are also expensive, costing more than $1,300 per month in the United States, raising questions over their potential reach.
(Reporting by Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Josephine Mason and Chizu Nomiyama)
