Barnstorming GLP-1 drugs have sent Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk rocketing up the list of the most valuable pharma brands. The leading weight-loss players were the two big winners in the latest report by Brand Finance, which found the value of the two brands jumped by more than 50% over the past year.
Brand Finance generated the ranking by assessing the net economic benefit a company would achieve by licensing its brand in the open market. The analysis is based on brand royalty agreements, assessments of the strength of a brand and other inputs. In 2023, the process yielded brand values of $3.9 billion for Lilly and $3.1 billion for Novo, putting them 9th and 14th on the list of most valuable pharma brands.
Those figures, which in Novo’s case were already inflated by its early GLP-1 success, were blown away in 2024. Brand Finance calculated the value of the Novo brand increased 64% to almost $5.1 billion in its latest assessment, sending the company up to eighth on the leaderboard. The gains are on top of the 30% rise in brand value Novo achieved as awareness of Ozempic and Wegovy cranked up in 2023.
Lilly, which sells the GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, almost kept pace with the explosive growth in Novo’s brand value. The U.S. drugmaker’s brand value soared 53% to approach $6 billion. Lilly knocked AstraZeneca and Bayer down one spot, to sixth and seventh, respectively, as it climbed up the chart.
Novo leapfrogged some big brands when it jumped to eighth place on the rankings. Sanofi slipped one spot, falling to ninth, despite seeing its brand value climb more than 6%. Bristol Myers Squibb fell three places to tenth, hurt by the both rise of Lilly and Novo and the almost 6% dip in its brand value. AbbVie dropped one place, while Sinopharm and Novartis, which took a 10% brand value hit, each fell two spots.
While the drugmakers between 5th and 14th jostled for position, the rankings higher up and lower down the chart were more static. The top four—Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Pfizer and Merck & Co., in that order—were the same as in 2023. Merck closed the gap on Pfizer, growing its brand value by 6% while its rival fell, but the same companies occupied the same positions.
The stasis was largely replicated in the lower reaches of the leaderboard. Regeneron was a new entry, taking 22nd place, and Biogen slipped two spots to 24th as its brand value dropped 13%. Otherwise, the same companies largely took the same positions.