Two numbers here and the gap between them is the whole point: 7.8 million adults meet one approved indication and up to 338.9 thousand meet the other. On the American side, the second kind of indication is the one that unlocked coverage.
What was counted
Researchers took Australia’s 2022 National Health Survey and applied the criteria written into the regulator’s approved indications — chronic weight management, and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in people with overweight or obesity. [1] Then they counted how many adults met each.
39.7%, 95% CI 38.4% to 41.0%, met the weight management criteria: 7.8 million people, 95% CI 7.6 to 8.1 million. Among them, 2.9 million had no weight-related comorbidity, 3.3 million had one, and 1.7 million had at least two.
The narrow indication
Of the 7.8 million, up to 338.9 thousand, 95% CI 271.3 to 406.5 thousand, also met the criteria for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. That is roughly 4% — this desk’s division of the two published figures.
That contrast is worth holding onto. The indication almost everyone qualifies under is the one written around weight; the indication a much smaller group qualifies under is the one written around an established cardiovascular event. Which one a person falls into changes everything about what a system will fund, without changing anything about the drug — and on this roster, where buyers pay cash, it changes nothing at all.
Three limits before quoting 39.7%
It is Australia, under that country’s regulator, whose approved wording is not identical to the FDA’s. It is 2022 survey data, collected before the current market took its present shape. And it is self-reported height, weight and conditions, as national health surveys are.
None of those makes the estimate wrong. They make it an estimate of one country at one moment, which is the caveat any large headline denominator needs attached.
What a buyer takes from it
That the pool of people who meet the criteria is enormous, the pool who meet the narrower criteria is not, and nothing in either number is about affordability.
Eligibility and access are different questions, and the second is the one that decides anything: most people who qualify never start, and when a study actually offered the drug to eligible patients, most declined on price.