GLP-1 in the Americas: Search Demand Moves South, Price Takes Over

GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are no longer a US story. Across 19 countries in the Americas, Google searches for GLP-1 brands, molecules and questions grew 3% to 168.8M a year. Spanish-speaking Latin America grew 45% to 21.6M, while the US, which still holds 64% of all searches, grew 2%.

The questions are changing too. People ask less about side effects and more about price, pills and generics, and Lilly’s brands now draw half of all brand searches. Here is what a year of search data says about where demand is moving, what consumers want and where to enter first.

How This Read Works

• Source: Google search volume from the GLP-1 & Weight Loss project in Trajaan by Cision

• Scope: 670 English and Spanish keywords in 19 countries, with regional data for 264 states, provinces and departments in 11 of them

• Period: Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 against the year before; momentum compares Jul to Sep 2026 with Jul to Sep 2025

• Intent: searches classified into 21 topics, from side effects and price to dosage and appearance

• Brands: Mounjaro and Zepbound (Lilly); Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus and Saxenda (Novo Nordisk)

Demand Is Flat Overall and Moving South

Total demand barely moved, but its center of gravity did. Mexico and Colombia alone added 4.9M searches a year, 88% of the net gain across the Americas.

• Mexico: 11.7M searches, +47%, and still +25% in Q3 2026

• Colombia: 2.7M searches, +75%, and +85% in Q3 2026

• Peru and Chile: smaller bases, but accelerating (+86% and +48% in Q3 2026)

• United States: 107.7M searches, +2% over the year and -4% in Q3 2026

• Brazil: -10% over the year and -45% in Q3 2026, after the semaglutide patent expired in March 2026

Growth Has Left the Capitals

Inside each market, the fastest growth now sits outside the capital. In 7 of the 8 Spanish-speaking markets with regional data, secondary regions grew faster than the capital region.

Mexico’s south is the next wave. Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca run at 32 to 36 searches per 1,000 people, a fifth of Mexico City’s 176, and grew 56% to 76% in a year. In the US, the picture is the opposite: 43 of 51 states declined, and every state fell in Q3 2026.

Price Is Now the Main Question

Awareness is no longer the barrier. In Latin America, people ask how much it costs and where to buy it; in the US and Canada, they ask about savings, insurance and side effects.

• United States: affordability is 22% of intent searches, up from 18%. It reaches 25% or more in 15 states of the South and lower Midwest, led by Mississippi (31%) and Arkansas (30%)

• Mexico: affordability is 36% of intent searches, up from 19%, and price searches rose 3.8 times to 222k

• Canada: savings searches rose 4.4 times after generic semaglutide reached pharmacies in May 2026

• Pills: wegovy pill drew 4.2M US searches after the Wegovy pill launched on Jan 5, 2026 at $149 a month (PharmExec). Lilly’s Foundayo (orforglipron) was approved in April 2026 (PharmaShots), and searches for orforglipron precio grew from 9k to 140k in Mexico

Side Effects Are Fading as a Barrier

Side-effect searches fell 11% across the Americas while total demand grew 3%, and searches about serious risks fell 27%. Fear is following adoption, not leading it.

• Worry fell in all 32 Mexican states and all 13 Canadian provinces

• Side effects still lead the questions in every US state, from 31% of intent searches in Washington DC to 43% in Hawaii

• Fear grows faster than interest only in a few small markets: Paraguay, Bolivia and northern Argentina

• Watch the gray market: searches for retatrutida rose from 128k to 926k in Brazil, although retatrutide is approved nowhere (Olhar Digital)

Lilly Reached Parity With Novo Nordisk

Mounjaro and Zepbound drew 50% of GLP-1 brand searches in the Americas, up from 40% a year earlier, while Ozempic fell 36%.

• Mounjaro: 42.8M searches (+18%), now the most searched GLP-1 brand

• Ozempic: 32.1M (-36%), down 39% in the US and 64% in Brazil

• Wegovy: 24.3M (+22%), lifted by the pill

• Zepbound: 19.3M (+10%), up 3.7 times in Canada

Leadership is regional. In the US, Wegovy leads 18 states in the South and Mid-Atlantic, Zepbound 16 in the Northeast and Midwest, and Ozempic 16 in the West and Texas. Mounjaro leads all 27 Brazilian states and 21 of 32 Mexican states.

From Brands to Molecules

• Searches that name no brand rose from 26% to 36% of US searches, from 9% to 20% in Canada and from 9% to 15% in Mexico

• In Brazil, Ozempic searches fell from 10.4M to 3.7M after the patent expiry. Anvisa registered five more semaglutide pens on Jul 29, 2026 (O Povo), and searches for ozempic genérico more than doubled

• In Canada, generic semaglutide launched in May 2026, and searches for generic semaglutide canada grew from 1.6k to 42.5k (Jan to Sep)

Market by Market

Where to Enter First

1. Mexico, starting in the centre: nine states led by Mexico City, the State of Mexico and Jalisco carry 58% of growth. Follow demand south next

2. Colombia: +75% a year and still accelerating, with price-led demand that suits access and pharmacy models

3. The US South, for access and pills: price matters most there, and oral GLP-1 is the clearest new demand line

4. Chile, Peru and Argentina, later: secondary cities such as Arequipa, Maule and Corrientes grow fastest

5. Brazil and Canada, after a re-measure: track Portuguese and French generic searches before committing

Plan for January and May

• January lifts brand searches 13% to 15% above December every year since 2024

• May was the peak month in 2024 and 2025

• 2026 broke the pattern: brand searches fell every month from April (12.5M) to September (10.1M), the lowest month since December 2023

Limits of This Read

• Search shows interest, not prescriptions, sales or prices paid

• Portuguese and French keywords are not tracked, so Brazil and Quebec are undercounted

• Regional figures do not add up to national totals, so compare regions within a country

• These are demand signals to feed decisions, not investment advice

Want the same view for your category? Trajaan by Cision reads search, social and AI answers as one set of data, market by market and region by region.