Manufacturers of weight loss products hope that companies will offer their medication to employees as a benefit. Chronic obesity costs the German economy billions due to high levels of absenteeism.
Weight loss injection: Do the funds bring more people back to work? Photo: Getty Images [M]
The manufacturers Lilly and Novo Nordisk want to win employers as customers in order to offer weight loss injections as a benefit, as they have not yet achieved reimbursement from statutory health insurance companies.
According to an analysis by Novo Nordisk, people with obesity cause 13 more days of absence and 3,029 euros higher annual costs per person, which could provide health insurance companies with an annual savings potential of 21 billion euros.
Studies from Great Britain and Denmark show that weight loss products can reduce the number of sick days and absences in the long term.
Some US employers have stopped reimbursing weight loss products due to high costs.
The summary was created and editorially checked using AI.
Munich. The manufacturers of weight loss products, Lilly and Novo Nordisk, have so far failed to get their medications reimbursed by statutory health insurance companies. Now they are courting employers as buyers who could provide their employees with weight loss injections free of charge as a benefit.
Lilly and Novo want to secure contracts with companies in Germany before other competitors enter the lucrative weight loss market from 2028.
The background is the fundamentally great need: According to the Federal Statistical Office, one in five adults in Germany suffers from chronic obesity and more than one in two are overweight. Obesity causes overall economic costs of 113 billion euros annually.
So could the weight loss injection as an employee goodie be the solution? A first German scientific study shows a concrete benefit for employers. However, the idea has several catches.
According to the current “Future of Wellness Survey” by management consultancy McKinsey, it is estimated that around six percent of Germans use weight loss products, across all age groups.
A new evaluation by Novo, based for the first time on actual billings from statutory health insurance (GKV), now makes the burden of care tangible: people with obesity have 13 more days of absence than the average employee. Each sick person therefore incurs 3,029 euros more annual costs. Extrapolated to all legally insured people in Germany, health insurance companies could save 21 billion euros annually.
"Health at work is therefore also an economic issue. It is logical that employers are taking up the issue," says Sabrina Kristic, senior partner and healthcare expert at the strategy consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This thesis is also supported by a study by the provider of digital health services, Oviva, from 2024 and 2025, which has now been published: Patients who were prescribed the weight loss medication by the British public health system NHS had 45 percent fewer sick days and 56 percent fewer longer absences.
The British government is increasingly interested in the economic consequences of obesity. She is currently conducting a five-year study with Lilly. It aims to clarify whether weight loss medications can help more people return to work.
A Danish study over several years also found a reduction in long-term absences due to illness by 17.3 percent. However, the study primarily examined diabetes patients who were taking Ozempic from Novo Nordisk.
Lilly and Novo are looking for employers in the chemical and automotive industries
Now the manufacturers' plans are becoming more concrete. “We are in ongoing discussions with various employers who have recognized that obesity is associated with loss of productivity and many secondary illnesses,” said Lilly’s Germany boss Alexander Horn to the Handelsblatt.
This refers to collaborations with companies that could reimburse their employees for weight loss products as “corporate benefits”. In the USA, both manufacturers are already concluding contracts directly with employers. “It’s a win-win situation,” says Horn. Discussions are primarily taking place with the chemical and automotive industries. “Especially where it involves a lot of production,” says Horn.
Lilly already offers its own employees a global program called Health Plus. It runs with free choice of doctor and product, so Lilly would also take over the competing product. In Germany, around 20 percent of the workforce currently uses the program. Novo currently does not offer its employees a comparable program.
It will be interesting to see which target groups German employers define, says Judith Wallenstein, senior partner at the consulting firm BCG. Obesity, i.e. a BMI of more than 30, is much more common in the professionally active population of the USA than in Germany. “Employers will certainly reconsider what expectations are raised by an offer that may only be relevant to 20 percent of the workforce.”
The prescription, so-called GLP-1 medications from manufacturers such as Lilly and Novo Nordisk also require medical care and usually long-term treatment. “In this respect, I think positioning it as a ‘job perk’ analogous to Wellpass or Urban Sports is debatable,” says Roman Hipp, Senior Partner at the Porsche Consulting Group. In addition, the treatment decision in Germany rests strictly with doctors.
Wallenstein sees it similarly: positive effects only arose if the affected employees maintained their healthier weight in the long term. “Otherwise, the increased health care costs are not offset by any long-term benefits.”
Some US employers are eliminating reimbursement again
A 2026 report from the Pharmaceutical Strategies Group shows: 14 percent of US employers have already stopped reimbursement for GLP-1 weight loss drugs due to high costs. Pepsico also stopped reimbursement entirely in October. Prescription obesity medications became the fastest-growing cost of the company's healthcare budget.
Other employers could come to the same conclusion: In the same analysis, six percent said they wanted to cancel reimbursement in 2027.
According to experts, employers are asking themselves how long employees are in treatment and when the “return on investment” will really occur. A data point that cannot be shown through studies. The effect only becomes apparent after longer, continuous treatment, says Hipp.
Production at Pepsico: The manufacturer has ended its reimbursement for weight loss medications. Photo: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg
“A direct transfer of the absenteeism savings to younger people who use GLP-1 primarily for weight loss is not possible based on the studies that have existed to date,” says Hipp.
A recent US study also shows that companies should not expect a quick economic return. It shows that GLP-1 users incur 19.4 percent higher medical costs and an average of 0.86 additional days of absence in the first year. This is due to the fact that people with greater health problems initially begin treatment.
The statutory health insurance companies currently see no chance of reimbursement. The Social Security Code classifies weight loss products as lifestyle medications and therefore prohibits reimbursement. According to the manufacturer, discussions are ongoing with private health insurance companies. However, the private US insurer Cigna recently reported a withdrawal from reimbursement for GLP-1 drugs for weight loss.
Manufacturers have a clear demand from politicians
Being overweight is associated with around 200 secondary diseases. This results in enormous indirect costs, which, according to manufacturers, need to be reduced. “We need a national prevention strategy as a first big step,” says Lilly Germany boss Horn.
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The future of the healthcare system must be based on incentives in which the patient takes on more personal responsibility, says Horn. So far, only around three percent of German health spending has gone towards prevention.
“Why not create incentives in the system so that patients behave more healthily?” Tobacco and sugar taxes or preventive examinations at the dentist are positive examples. “This is the path we have to take to make our system fit for the future,” says the pharmaceutical manager. This requires courage on the part of the health insurance companies and politicians.
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