(Yicai) Aug. 23 -- American drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. has applied to register a new anti-obesity medicine similar to Novo Nordisk’s hit drug Ozempic in China, which is expected to have a huge impact as over 40 percent of adult males in the Asian country are overweight based on recent survey findings.

The National Medical Products Administration has accepted Eli Lilly’s latest registration application for Tirzepatide, an injectable medicine that is also pending approval to be used by type 2 diabetics to control their blood sugar levels, but this time the target is people who do not have T2D but want to lose weight, the bureau said on its website recently.

From the application stage, it usually takes from one to two years to gain approval to hit the market so 2024 or 2025 is likely to be an intense time in the Chinese weight-loss product market, industry insiders predicted.

People are getting more tools to control their blood sugar and insulin levels as Novo Nordisk got its semaglutide, sold as Ozempic, approved in 2021 in China to improve glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. Since then, Ozempic has become known as a celebrity weight-loss product around the world.

The addressable market is huge. More than 41 percent of Chinese men are overweight and the same is true for 27 percent of Chinese women, Chen Kang from the First Medical Center of the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital wrote in an article published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism on Aug. 17. The study was based on a poll of 15.8 million adults.

Eli Lilly’s clinical tests show that Tirzepatide can help obese patients lose weight in addition to controlling blood glucose levels, the Indianapolis-based firm said. Last September, Eli Lilly applied to let T2D patients use Tirzepatide in China but the result is pending. The product has been approved for this purpose in the United States, the European Union, and Japan.

A test group of obese patients who do not have T2D lost almost 23 percent of their body weight after using a high dose of Tirzepatide, and 63 percent of study participants lost at least 20 kilograms, which is a first among drugs in phase three clinical trials, per the firm.

Editor: Emmi Laine