Alvogen Korea's Qsymia has topped the sales of prescription drugs in the local obesity market, ending the three-year domination by Novo Nordisk's Saxenda.

According to UBIST, a drug market survey firm, the prescription of Alvogen's Qsymia has exceeded that of Saxenda since March 2020.

The prescription of Qsymia totaled 7.14 billion won ($6 million) from January to July, the highest among the obesity drugs, followed by Daewoong Pharmaceutical's Dietamine with 6.74 billion, and Huons’ Hutermine with 6.23 billion won. However, Saxenda, which ranked first in sales in 2019, plunged to fourth place with 6.04 billion won.

The reason for the change in rankings was the rise of Qsymia and the fall of Saxenda. When it was launched in January, the monthly prescription of Qsymia stood at a mere 313 million won, only one-third of Saxenda’s 1.01 billion won.

In February, however, Gsymia’s prescription grew to 614 million won while Saxenda’s dropped to 876 million won. In March, Qsymia surpassed Saxenda, recording 878 million won against 779 million.

Qsymia’s prescription continued to grow to 1.04 billion won in April, 1.17 billion in May, 1.49 billion in June, and 1.63 billion in July. In contrast, Saxenda's sales fell to 891 million won, 860 million, 822 million, and 805 million won during the same period.

While Qsymia recorded the sales of growth of 420 percent from January to July, Saxenda marked the prescription drop of 20.4 percent, indicating that the launch Qsymia dealt a direct blow to Saxenda, UBIST said.

Qsymia is a combination drug of an appetite suppressant Phentermine and Topiramate, an epilepsy drug. Even before the combination drug’s release, there had been many cases of off-label prescription in Korea as its two ingredients were known to be effective in weight loss.

"Phentermine and Topiramate, which are the ingredients of Qsymia, had been so frequently prescribed even before the combo drug’s official launch that most people in the medical community had used it," said Hwang Hee-jin, chief of Family Medicine at the Catholic Kwandong University International St. Mary's Hospital. “Except the doctors might have felt some psychological burdens as they had to use them off-label.”

Alvogen Korea introduced Qsymia in four doses at an equal price. The drug has its strength in that the patients and medical staff do not have to worry about increasing dosage as the drug cost remains the same.

In 2016, Qsymia showed the strongest weight loss effect in a comparative study of various obesity drugs published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The Topiramate included in the Qsymia is a time-release oral drug, and patients need only one pill a day," said an official of the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity and Health. "From the patients’ standpoint, there might be few reasons for using Saxenda, which has weaker weight loss effects and requires an injection."