{"id":321492,"date":"2026-02-28T08:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321492\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T08:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:19:15","slug":"the-weight-loss-drug-revolution-looks-like-a-winner-for-irelands-economy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321492\/","title":{"rendered":"The weight-loss drug revolution looks like a winner for Ireland\u2019s economy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smartphone sales eclipsed PC sales in 2011, making the smartphone<\/a> the primary computing platform on the planet. Officials here can be forgiven for not seeing the import of this shift in the technology<\/a> cycle. <\/p>\n

The State was enmeshed in a financial crisis, predicated on the biggest percentage peak-to-trough fall in house prices recorded anywhere in the world. The glory days of the Celtic Tiger<\/a> had reverted back to 1980s-style emigration and unemployment. The mood in the country was sour.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t evident back then that Ireland would ride this smartphone revolution back to prosperity. <\/p>\n

Within five years, unemployment, which had ballooned to over 16 per cent, would be halved, national income would increase by more than 60 per cent and the public finances would be almost back in surplus.<\/p>\n

This rapid economic turnaround wasn\u2019t down to one company or one sector. But multinational exports with Apple\u2019s iPhone at the centre played a significant role.<\/p>\n

Apple was among the first major technology groups to bet on Ireland \u2013 establishing a base here in 1980 \u2013 a move that was no doubt linked to tax and access to the EU\u2019s rich consumer market, but this has had a clustering effect. <\/p>\n

Other companies like Google and Meta (also major beneficiaries of the smartphone revolution) have followed suit.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0US firms Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly paid almost 50% of State\u2019s corporate tax in 2024Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Apple is among the State\u2019s largest private sector employers, employing over 6,000 staff mainly at its Cork campus.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no single item that generates more tax wealth for the Government than the iPhone. <\/p>\n

The company channels profits generated from global (non-US) sales through its Cork-based subsidiary Apple Operations International Limited. In 2024, it paid approximately \u20ac5.8 billion in corporate tax here. <\/p>\n

Apple, more than any other company, catalysed the smartphone revolution, inadvertently placing Ireland at the centre of it.<\/p>\n

The State might be about to ride another technology gear change, this time in the form of weight-loss medicines, or GLP-1s as they\u2019re known in the industry. <\/p>\n

The global market for these drugs is expected to swell to $150 billion (\u20ac127 billion) by 2030 (some think that\u2019s a conservative estimate) and the leading player has decided to base a significant tranche of its supply chain here.<\/p>\n

Eli Lilly manufactures the ingredients for its top selling drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound medications at a factory in Kinsale.<\/p>\n

Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, these drugs have now been expanded to treat the biggest health epidemic on the planet: obesity.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Success of Eli Lilly\u2019s weight loss drugs could fatten its Irish corporate tax billOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Having been on an upward trajectory for decades (hitting a record 39.9 per cent in 2022), the US adult obesity rate declined to 37 per cent in 2025, according to the Gallup National Health and Wellbeing Index, a decline that\u2019s been linked almost entirely to these new drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a statistically meaningful decrease representing an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese adults compared with three years ago,\u201d Gallup said.<\/p>\n

Despite the impact from Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs, Irish goods exports spiked last year largely on the back of Eli Lilly shipping ingredients to the US.<\/p>\n

The pharma giant shipped $42.3 billion (\u20ac36.4 billion) of these ingredients in the first four months of 2025.<\/p>\n

This was initially put down to a strategic front-loading of product to avoid tariffs.<\/p>\n

But several contributors at a recent conference hosted by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) wondered if we might instead be seeing a level shift in these exports linked to an explosion in demand for the company\u2019s drugs.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How a blockbuster weight-loss drug made Ireland the fastest-growing economy in the worldOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The company has recently reconfigured a second $2 billion facility in Limerick \u2013 originally earmarked to make Alzheimer\u2019s medicines \u2013 to produce these weight-loss ingredients. The facility is due to commence production this year.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s needle-free oral weight-loss pill, Orforglipron, is also set to get regulatory approval in 2026, which could further accelerate demand.<\/p>\n

This week Eli Lilly\u2019s main rival in the market, Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic, unveiled late-stage data results for its next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema, that not only showed it underperforming Eli Lilly\u2019s Zepbound, but appeared to show weight loss with Zepbound was better than even some of Eli Lilly\u2019s own data had shown.<\/p>\n

In response to the news, Novo Nordisk\u2019s shares fell 16 per cent while Eli Lilly shares increased by 5 per cent.<\/p>\n

Indiana-headquartered Eli Lilly paid approximately \u20ac2.2 billion in corporation tax here in 2024, making the third biggest corporate tax payer behind Apple and Microsoft. Subsequent US filings by the company suggest its tax liability here almost tripled to $6.6 billion (\u20ac5.6 billion) last year, a figure that was well ahead of its US liability.<\/p>\n

The much-warned-about concentration risk at the heart of the exchequer and the economy here emanates from a string of devices, services and blockbuster drugs which, for now, the companies involved have decided to make here.<\/p>\n

But patents lapse. Newer technologies replace older ones and consumer tastes change.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t be sure these trends will continue to go Ireland\u2019s way but for now the economy remains on a winning streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smartphone sales eclipsed PC sales in 2011, making the smartphone the primary computing platform on the planet. Officials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[936,72,24463,12250,61,60,11495,10416],"class_list":["post-321492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-corporation-tax","tag-eli-lilly","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mounjaro","tag-novo-nordisk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}