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Probably not. People are likely to eat smaller and fewer meals, but not necessarily healthier ones.
Wall Street has placed a big bet on GLP-1 drugs. When Walmart’s U.S. CEO, John Furner, told Bloomberg in October 2023 that customers on Ozempic were buying “slightly less calories,” packaged-food stocks cratered. The five largest pure-play companies fell roughly 18% while the S&P 500 gained 24%. Prices stabilized in 2024 when analysts concluded the GLP-1 fears were overblown. Then they fell again in 2025. General Mills, Campbell’s, and Conagra are now down more than 50% from their peaks.
Goldman Sachs has projected these drugs could add more than 1% to gross domestic product if adoption reaches 60 million Americans by 2028, driven by higher labor-force participation and lower absenteeism among healthier workers. The investment thesis is baked into valuations across food, retail and healthcare, and Wall Street shows no sign of second-guessing it.
Such excitement may be warranted on the health front. In clinical trials, semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) produced average body-weight reductions of 14.9% vs. 2.4% on placebo; tirzepatide (Zepbound and Mounjaro) achieved up to 20.9% at the highest dose. A landmark cardiovascular trial found that semaglutide reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death by 20% in high-risk patients. The FDA has approved GLP-1 drugs for kidney disease and sleep apnea, and emerging evidence points to benefits in liver disease, arthritis and addiction.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Roland G. Fryer, Jr., a John A. Paulson Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is Professor of Economics at Harvard University, an entrepreneur, and co-founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures.