The United States is one of just two countries that allow pharmaceutical firms to freely advertise their products directly to consumers.

The other is New Zealand. So if you ever watch TV in the U.S., you have likely seen many ads for prescription drugs.

But advertising doesn't guarantee success. The research and development

of these drugs is very expensive, and most of them never earn back their investment.

The pharmaceutical industry, therefore, relies on the occasional blockbuster drug. A blockbuster

defined is doing more than a billion dollars a year in sales.

If I asked you to name a blockbuster drug from the past, you might say Lipitor, a statin, originally from Park Davis, or Humera, an anti-inflammatory, now sold by Abbe.

And can you name a current blockbuster?

The first drug that comes to mind might be this one.

If you watch even a tiny bit of TV, you've probably seen an ad for Ozempic.

Their jingle is sung to the tune of the 1974 pop hit magic by a band called Pilot, which had exactly one U.S. hit.

Ozenpik, which is sold by the Danish multinational Novo Nordisk, is not a one-hit wonder.

It is one of a group of drugs known as GLP-1s, and many Americans would agree that they are magic.

GLP stands for glucagon-like peptide, which is a hormone produced in the human gut, and these

drugs mimic the activity of that hormone.

OZemPEC was developed to treat type 2 diabetes, which used to be called adult onset

diabetes to distinguish it from the more serious type 1 diabetes, which most often occurs

in young people.

But those lines have blurred, as many more people around the world, including a lot of

young people, are now getting type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a condition whereby the pancreas can't produce enough insulin to modulate your

level of glucose or blood sugar. Over the long term, high blood sugar can lead to all kinds of

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