In 2025 the Gates Foundation began exploring how to bring GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs — such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro — to people in lower-income countries, in talks with the Pan American Health Organization. Bill Gates noted that roughly a billion people worldwide are now obese, about 70% of them in low- and middle-income countries, and that 'behavior change is hard,' pointing to the drugs as a potential tool against obesity-linked chronic disease. The push anticipated cheaper generic versions of semaglutide as patents expire, and reflected the foundation's expansion beyond infectious disease into the rising burden of noncommunicable conditions.