For two years the market priced Ozempic as the thing that would kill the sleep apnea business. ResMed now publishes data saying the opposite. Seven days later it filed a document saying the original fear still stands.
The bear case on ResMed was simple. GLP-1 drugs make people lose weight, weight loss reduces sleep apnea, and a company that sells CPAP machines to people with sleep apnea has a problem.
On 6 August, reporting its June-year results, ResMed put a slide up that says the opposite is happening.
The slide read: “Real-world data analysis now shows more than 2.5 million patients on GLP-1s both initiate CPAP more and stay on therapy”.
Underneath it added: patients with a sleep apnea diagnosis who are prescribed a GLP-1 are 10.7 percentage points more likely to start on positive airway pressure therapy than those who are not. Their resupply rates run 3.4 percentage points higher one year after setup, and 6.0 points higher at three years.
The sample is 2,593,000 patients, drawn from IQVIA prescription and diagnostic claims between July 2021 and March 2026.
A second slide addresses the sequencing directly. At 90 days after a positive sleep apnea diagnosis, ResMed says more than 40 per cent of patients had started on airway pressure therapy against fewer than 3 per cent on a GLP-1.
Paul Rickard picked it up on this week’s Switzer Show. “Some of the question marks people had about it in terms of what would be the impact of the weight-loss drugs, they seem to have faded a little bit,” the Switzer Report co-founder said. “There’s a good correlation between people actually using their devices and undertaking the weight-loss treatments.”
Seven days after that slide deck, however, ResMed filed its annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The risk factors still include this:
“injectable glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1, weight loss drugs may lower the occurrence of obesity, eventually reducing the severity of OSA, if significant weight loss is maintained. Injectable weight loss drugs have been approved for treatment of OSA in patients with obesity and moderate to severe OSA.”
A little bit of bet-hedging from ResMed here, perhaps?
Either way, FY26 revenue was US$5.65 billion, up 10 per cent. ResMed guides FY27 revenue growth of 5 to 7 per cent at constant currency and earnings growth of 12 to 14 per cent, and has committed to returning more than US$1.85 billion to shareholders.
