The news: Doctors started paying more attention to information and ads for new weight loss drugs months before they began prescribing them, according to research from ZoomRx. The study tracked obesity health-related web browsing and ad exposures for 279 healthcare providers on digital channels and 204 on TV and connected TV.

Digging into the details: The research tracked doctors’ attention to GLP-1 obesity drugs Wegovy (Novo Nordisk) and Zepbound (Eli Lilly) for more than a year, from Q2 2024 through Q1 2025.

• Physician engagement with content and advertising about Wegovy began to decline in Q3 2024.
• Doctors began to pay more attention to Lilly’s Zepbound content and advertising on digital channels and connected TV (CTV). By the end of 2024, Zepbound grew from 0% to a 20% share of physicians’ attention in obesity drugs.

Zooming out: According to ZoomRx, when doctors started paying more attention to Zepbound content and ads, it was an early sign that its sales would soon increase.

• Even though doctors' attention shifted from Wegovy to Zepbound in late 2024, Wegovy's sales still peaked at $2.8 billion in the last quarter of that year.
• Just six months later, Zepbound's sales climbed to $2.3 billion in the first quarter of 2025, showing that doctors' early interest was a good predictor of its future success.

Why it matters: Traditional data measurements like the number of prescriptions and quarterly sales lag behind more predictive behavioral actions like changes in prescribers’ interest.

Especially for new drug classes like GLP-1s, tracking physicians’ journeys as they learn the science, dosing, and patient appropriateness can create a window of opportunity for drugmakers to shape prescribing habits.

Our take: Pharma companies need to find where doctors are searching or reading about Rx drugs and how their interest in a drug’s information is changing, even before the sales numbers are in.

• Track Reddit forums and physician social media channels like Sermo and Doximity to gauge behaviors and attitudes and shift marketing plans to meet them.
• Use sales reps and peer-led webinars to capture early interest—and keep refreshing that marketing with updated data and patient results as competing entrants begin to pull attention away.

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