The world is desperate for weight-loss drugs. But Big Pharma can’t advertise them | CNN Business

The temperature was 92 degrees Fahrenheit. The sweat, profuse. And I was walking toward an exhibition about the “obesity experience” on London’s bustling riverside funded by a $220 billion pharmaceutical company. It was day two of two. In a few hours’ time, the exhibition, designed as a maze, would be gone. And so too would be my chance to see, up close, the promotional gymnastics of a booming weight-loss drug industry bound by strict laws around what it can – and absolutely cannot – say to the British public. When I appeared at the mouth of the maze, a green T-shirted man explained that he was from Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk. The exhibition, he said, represents the many stops, starts and setbacks people find when trying to lose weight — it can sort of feel like getting lost in a maze. I asked what Novo Nordisk did or made specifically. “Ok, I do know. I’m just not allowed to tell you.” Novo Nordisk is the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, GLP-1 medications approved for diabetes control and weight loss, respectively. Like all pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Britain, it is banned from advertising medications to the public that can only be prescribed by a