Ozempic: 1 shot/week vs 2/day before
Ozempic unlocked mass market adoption by reducing injections from twice daily (liraglutide) to once weekly while doubling the therapeutic effect.
Snapshot · God Mode Podcast
The Bear Case for SpaceX at $1.75T | Karpathy Joins Anthropic | Cursor vs Codex vs Claude Code | Codex Builds an ERP in 7 Hours | Why Ozempic Is $20 in China | EP14
Explore episode
May 22, 2026
Where this was said
GLP-1 Peptides Explained: From Ozempic to Retatrutide
At 55:35 · chapter starts 51:50
28.3% body weight loss
Retatrutide Phase 3 trials showed 28.3% body weight loss on 12mg over 80 weeks, significantly outperforming earlier GLP-1 drugs.
GLP-1 Drugs Explained: From Ozempic to Retatrutide
Ozempic triggered a revolution by cutting injections from twice daily to once weekly. Retatrutide adds a third receptor key — GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon — delivering 28.3% body weight loss in Phase 3 trials. Think of each generation as a Pokemon evolution, and we're not close to the final form.
GLP-1 natural half-life: 30 mins
Natural GLP-1 has a half-life of only 30 minutes in the blood; drug engineers have extended this to enable weekly injections with sustained effect.
$2.3B average drug development cost
Taking a drug from early research to market approval costs an average of $2.3 billion and takes a median of 15 years.
Ozempic $400/mo vs $10-20 from China
Brand-name Ozempic costs around $400 per month in the US, while equivalent peptides sourced from China cost $10–20, a 20-40x price gap.
Why Pharma Charges 40x More Than China: The Compounding Loophole
Developing a drug costs $2.3 billion over 15 years. You get 8 years to recoup it before generics hit. Meanwhile, US compounding pharmacies exploit a loophole to sell unbranded Ozempic for $50 instead of $1,500. It's the AI subscription pricing model applied to pharmaceuticals.
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