Novo Nordisk Seeks Injunction Against Eli Lilly in Dispute Over Weight-Loss Ads
Adam Whittaker
Fri, July 24, 2026 at 4:21 PM GMT+5:30
2 min read
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Novo Nordisk said it is asking a U.S. court to preliminarily halt rival Eli Lilly from advertising weight-loss drugs, days after accusing the Indianapolis drugmaker of using deceptive ads to mislead consumers in a lawsuit
Friday’s preliminary injunction request, filed in the District of New Jersey, escalates legal proceedings initiated earlier this week. Novo Nordisk said the motion, to be filed on Aug. 17, will ask the court to stop Eli Lilly from advertising its GLP-1 weight-loss drugs while the lawsuit proceeds
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A spokesperson for Eli Lilly didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Earlier this week, the company defended its use of study results in its advertising campaigns
Novo Nordisk, through its drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, which makes <a href="https://healthylife7.com/the-billion-dollar-problem-keeping-ozempic-wegovy-and-zepbound-from-patients/” title=”The billion-dollar problem keeping Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound from patients”>Zepbound and Mounjaro, are competing to control the nearly $80 billion weight-loss drug market. How much weight a drug helps patients lose is a key determinant of market success and studies comparing the weight-loss effects of one drug compared with a rival one are hotly watched
On Tuesday, Novo Nordisk accused Eli Lilly of using outdated studies to promote its branded GLP-1 drugs, Mounjaro–aimed at diabetes sufferers–and Zepbound, as helping consumers lose significantly more weight on average than Novo Nordisk’s own drugs. The Danish company said that Eli Lilly’s studies compare the highest injectable doses of its own medicines against lower doses of Novo Nordisk’s injectable medicines for obesity and type-2 diabetes
Novo Nordisk said Friday that since it filed the lawsuit, Lilly hasn’t removed the advertisements, which it described as “confusing and deceiving.”
Novo Nordisk has now received approval for a higher dose of its injectable Wegovy drug. This means that Eli Lilly’s campaign, which relies on data comparing 10/15 mg of Zepbound vs 1.7/2.4 mg of Wegovy, is out of date, Novo Nordisk said
“This ad is especially misleading because there is no head-to-head clinical trial comparing the highest doses of these two medicines,” Novo Nordisk said
It also said Lilly’s advertising compares Mounjaro at its highest dose (15 mg) against a lower dose of injectable Ozempic
