[Market Focus] Samchundang Pharm Surges on Expectations for World’s First Rybelsus Patent-Circumventing Obesity Drug

by Lee Minwoo

Published 24 Jul.2025 09:45(KST)

Reducing Production Costs to One-Seventieth
No Infringement on Novo Nordisk's Patent

Samchundang Pharm is showing strong performance on expectations of launching a generic version of Novo Nordisk's obesity treatment. There is an outlook that the company can quickly enter the market by circumventing patents and replicating the original treatment, while also drastically reducing production costs to improve profitability.

As of 9:38 a.m. on July 24, Samchundang Pharm's stock price stood at 237,000 won, up 11.01% from the previous day. This increase is believed to be due to expectations that Samchundang Pharm's oral GLP-1 generic, currently under development, has successfully completed a bioequivalence test with Novo Nordisk’s original obesity treatment, "Rybelsus."

Recently, GLP-1 class treatments have been rapidly growing in the diabetes and obesity treatment field, reaching an annual market size of 150 trillion won. In particular, oral semaglutide (Rybelsus) offers greater convenience compared to injections, but supply shortages have made it difficult to meet demand.

With this generic development, Samchundang Pharm plans to implement a differentiated strategy that allows it to enter the semaglutide market, which is already worth 90 trillion won, immediately and without competition.

Samchundang Pharm used a proprietary absorption enhancer instead of SNAC, which is used in Rybelsus. By circumventing the original product's composition patent, the company can enter the market sequentially starting in 2026, depending on the expiration of the substance patent. Competing developers using SNAC may be subject to more than 10 registered composition patents, which could delay their product launches by more than five years compared to Samchundang Pharm. Additionally, by establishing a mass production system for its proprietary substance, the company is reportedly able to reduce production costs to one-seventieth of those for the original product.