---
title: "McDonald’s in Trouble as Ozempic Takes Hold"
description: "Financial services firm Redburn Atlantic says McDonald's is in trouble, due to weight loss drugs like Ozempic."
date: "2025-06-14"
modified: "2025-06-14"
authors:
  - name: "Sharon Adarlo"
    job_title: "Correspondent"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/sadarlo.md"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/mcdonalds-ozempic"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "RX and Medicine"
tags:
  - "fast food"
  - "McDonald's"
  - "obesity"
  - "ozempic"
---

# McDonald’s in Trouble as Ozempic Takes Hold

![Financial services firm Redburn Atlantic says McDonald's is in trouble, due to weight loss drugs like Ozempic.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/mcdonalds-ozempic.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

Broken [ice cream machines](<https://mcbroken.com/>) aren't the only thing bedeviling stalwart fast food chain McDonald's.

Financial services firm Redburn Atlantic put the company's stock in the bear category, coinciding with a slumpy week in which it lost about three percent of its value — because analysts are betting that GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs like Ozempic are going to disrupt the fast food business model, [*CBS News* reports](<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcdonalds-downgrade-weight-loss-drugs/>).

The eyebrow-raising conclusion comes as the analysts reason that people with lower incomes who go on the drugs will tend to shun food outside the home*.* Meanwhile, people at a higher income level who take Ozempic and similar go back to their food spending habits after a year or so.

"Behaviour changes extend beyond the individual user — reshaping group dining, influencing household routines and softening habitual demand," wrote the analysts, as reported by *CBS*. "A 1 percent drag today could easily build to 10 percent or more over time, particularly for brands skewed toward lower income consumers or group occasions."

This could have a huge impact on the bottom line of fast food chains like McDonald's, which could stand to lose as much as $482 million annually as they see the disappearance of 28 million visits from formerly hungry customers.

This is all complete speculation at this point, because only about [six percent of American adults](<https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2024-the-publics-use-and-views-of-glp-1-drugs>) are currently taking these weight loss medications. And they're prohibitively expensive, prices starting at around $900 per month, meaning that extremely few poor people are currently able to afford them.

But there's a movement by some policymakers to [lower the price of the drugs](<https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/biden-proposes-requiring-medicare-medicaid-cover-weight-loss-drugs-rcna181756>), which have been proven to not just help people lose weight, but they come with a [rash of benefits](<https://www.wired.com/story/the-benefits-of-ozempic-are-multiplying/>) from preventing certain cancers to treating addictions, among other positives.

So if lawmakers force a reduction in price in the future, expect fast food chains like McDonald's to be left holding the bag.

And maybe that's a good thing, because the kind of fried foods that McDonald's traffics in are just [plain bad for your health](<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17452996/>).

**More on Ozempic:** [*Doctors Concerned by Massive Uptick in Teens Taking Ozempic*](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/doctors-concerned-teens-ozempic.md>)

## More

- [McDonald’s Sued by Ice Cream Hackers for $900 Million](<https://futurism.com/mcdonalds-ice-cream-lawsuit.md>)
- [McDonald’s Abandoning AI-Powered Drive Thrus After Embarrassing Failures](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-abandoning-ai-drive-thrus.md>)
- [McDonald’s Is Installing AI-Powered Kiosks to Predict Your Order](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-ai-dynamic-yield-predict.md>)
- [McDonald’s Drive-Thru AI Giving Customers Hilariously Wrong Orders](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-drive-thru-ai-giving-customers-hilariously-wrong-orders.md>)
- [One Dead and Dozens Sick as McDonald’s Burgers Spread Deadly Disease](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/one-dead-mcdonalds-burgers-disease.md>)
- [McDonald’s Partners With IBM to Replace Drive-Thru Employees With AI](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-ibm-replace-drive-thru-employees.md>)
- [McDonald’s Reveals “Grease-Proof” Gaming Chair for Disgusting Gamers](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-grease-proof-gaming-chair.md>)
- [McDonald’s Is Making a Huge, High Tech Push Into Fake Meats](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mcdonalds-plant-based-mcplant.md>)