HYDERABAD, India, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Global pharma giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are scrambling to cement their lead in India's booming obesity drug market before cheaper generic versions hit shelves in March next year.

Novo's strategy emphasizes price cuts and accelerated launches, while Lilly's products benefitted from hitting the market early. Both companies focused on aggressive outreach to doctors, heavier advertising about obesity, tie-ups with clinics, ​patient incentives and distribution deals with local drugmakers, according to doctors, analysts, medical representatives, patients and distributors who spoke to Reuters.

Lilly has even teamed up in India with well-known Bollywood actors in a social media ‌ad campaign about obesity.

India, projected to have the world's second-largest overweight or obese population by 2050 in absolute numbers, is becoming a key battleground for obesity drugs. Analysts expect the global market for such drugs to hit $150 billion a year by the end of this decade.

Although the U.S. remains ‌the largest market for obesity drugs, early sales figures in India show rapid uptake, even though most patients in the world's most populous nation pay for the medication out-of-pocket.

"We believe that this market can be more than $1 billion within two years," said Shrikant Akolkar, vice president at research firm Nuvama Institutional Equities.

Data analytics firm Pharmarack said in July that the market was estimated to be worth 6.28 billion rupees ($70.23 million) at present, growing fivefold since 2021.

U.S. drugmaker Lilly's Mounjaro, approved for diabetes and weight loss in India, became the top-selling therapy by value in October, with sales doubling within months of its March launch, outpacing Danish drugmaker Novo's Wegovy, which entered the Indian market in June.

"We realized just after a couple of months that for accessibility, we had ⁠to take a price cut," said Vikrant Shrotriya, Novo Nordisk's managing director in ‌India, referring to Wegovy's price cut in November. Shrotriya spoke earlier this month while launching Novo Nordisk's blockbuster diabetes drug, Ozempic, in the country.

Ozempic, a once-weekly injection approved by the U.S. drug regulator in 2017 for Type 2 diabetes, became a global bestseller and is widely used off-label for weight loss due to its appetite-suppressing effects.

More than 20 Indian drugmakers, including Dr Reddy's, Cipla, ‍Sun Pharma, Zydus and Lupin, plan to launch cheaper versions of Novo's weight-loss drug in India once its patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in March 2026.