Ozempic for humans, ‘Meowzempic’ for cats? Pharma companies race towards fluffy new frontiers

You may have heard about weight-loss wonder drug Ozempic
– now get ready for “Meowzempic”.

Chinese pharmaceutical companies Huadong Medicine and YaoPharma have both developed weight-loss drugs for cats that are on the cusp of entering the rapidly growing realm of pet healthcare.

Their respective drugs create a feeling of fullness, helping users eat less by curbing their appetite. This is done via the drugs mimicking the effects of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a naturally occurring hormone that stimulates the pancreas to secrete more insulin when blood sugar levels rise, similar to how Ozempic works. GLP-1 also suppresses appetite by sending signals to the brain that users are full, so they eat less.

China’s pet population has surged from about 310 million animals in 2020 to more than 430 million in 2024, reported Shanghai’s official English-language platform City News Service. About 71 million of the pets are cats, and some 28 per cent of them are considered overweight.

According to Huadong, there is currently no approved drug anywhere in the world specifically aimed at helping obese cats lose weight.

Huadong’s drug trials saw cats lose an average of about 9 per cent of their body weight over six weeks, with nearly three-quarters of them losing more than 5 per cent.

No side effects were reported in any of the cats as a result of the once-a-week injectable treatment.

Developed by Huadong’s wholly owned subsidiary Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical, the drug was formally accepted for review by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Dec 26, 2025.

Meanwhile YaoPharma, a subsidiary of healthcare company Fosun Pharma, in December 2025 struck a US$2.1 billion (S$2.7 billion) licensing deal with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop and commercialise its GLP-1 obesity pill, reported CNBC.

The licence, according to a Fosun Pharma press release, covers human and veterinary use.

YaoPharma’s drug, which saw Pfizer make an upfront payment of US$150 million, is still undergoing clinical trials in Australia. However, it is still in the early stages of development, which means it will take several years to reach patients – if trials are successful.

On the other side of the world, San Francisco-based biopharmaceutical company Okava Pharmaceuticals announced on Dec 2 that it had officially begun a pilot study of a GLP-1 drug for cats with obesity
, called MEOW-1 for “ManagEment of Over Weight cats”.

Recent estimates suggest that roughly 60 per cent of cats and dogs in the US have obesity, with hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs having diabetes, Dr Chen Gilor, a veterinarian at the University of Florida, told The New York Times (NYT).

A Dec 3 Okava press release touts MEOW-1 as having “the potential to enhance quality of life, promote healthy ageing, and become the most impactful life-extending therapy available for cats”.

However, instead of weekly injections, the cats will get small, injectable implants, slightly larger than a microchip, that will slowly release the drug for as long as six months.

According to NYT, some veterinarians have already begun administering human GLP-1 drugs, off-label, to diabetic cats. However, this costs hundreds of dollars a month, the same price of the treatment for human patients. Existing drugs also do not seem to work well enough to entirely replace insulin in diabetic cats, especially in those whose disease is advanced.

As large clinical trials are still needed, though, some experts say it is unclear whether the drugs will be affordable, or even appealing, to pet owners.

Dr Maryanne Murphy, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of Tennessee, told NYT she thought GLP-1 drugs did have real potential in veterinary medicine – but as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, traditional weight management plans.

“I think it would not be a simple, quick, easy fix, where you just give the medication and you do not have to worry about anything else,” she said.