Off the Scales

The inside story of the race to develop Ozempic – the world’s first truly effective and safe obesity drug – and its potentially revolutionary effects on public health, and our deeper culture and values.

A ‘cure’ for obesity has long been the holy grail for the pharmaceutical industry, one that seemed unattainable until recent breakthroughs in type 2 diabetes research led to the development of Ozempic, a weight loss medication that makes people feel fuller for longer. The treatment is so effective that it is already disrupting many industries – from healthcare to fast food to fashion – and it has quickly made its creator, Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, the most valuable company in Europe. But the impact of these drugs goes far beyond billion-dollar profits; a true long-term cure for obesity could significantly reduce dangerous preventable illnesses. And as their success continues to grow, one question looms in the minds of investors, healthcare workers and politicians: are they too good to be true?

In Off the Scales, journalist Aimee Donnellan illuminates the history of the latest medical breakthrough that is poised to change the world, while bringing difficult social questions about inequality and morality to the forefront. Through original reporting and rigorous research, she forecasts the future of Ozempic and similar medications like Mounjaro and Wegovy, and examines what their explosive popularity tells us about our ideals of beauty, the lengths to which people will go in order to become thin, the current state of healthcare and the inner workings of the pharmaceutical industry.

Along the way, Donnellan profiles the scientist whose contributions to the discovery of GLP-1 were overlooked and her fight for recognition, and offers new insights into the ways that the food and beauty industries made billions while promoting unhealthy and unrealistic body image standards and accelerating the obesity crisis. She also reveals the lengths that the celebrity class went to obtain this medication when supplies were limited and prescriptions were costly, and relates the first-hand accounts of several early Ozempic users and the transformative effect the drug has had on their weight loss journeys. Above all, Off the Scales is a gripping and informative study of the unexpected social consequences of finally getting what we've wanted for so long.