Speaking at the recent Growth Asia Summit 2026 in Singapore on the topic “India’s active lifestyle nutrition: Opportunities from sports to GLP-1 users”, Vijayaraghavan Venugopal, co-founder at leading sports nutrition brand Fast&Up indicated that the GLP-1 market and its opportunities are still evolving in the country.
“People have been assuming, thinking that the inflexion point has arrived for the GLP-1 sector in India,” he said. “We still do not know which way, in terms of actual percentages, this trend is going...I think beyond the GLP-1 is what attracts nutrition brands.”
As a sports nutrition company known for effervescent tablets, Fast&Up believes that there are opportunities for meeting the nutritional needs of not only GLP-1 users through protein and micronutrients, but also post-users and individuals who would like to enjoy the benefits of GLP-1 without taking the medication, also known as GLP-1 adjacent users.
“The way we are seeing it is that GLP-1 is a scenario that will happen that we cannot predict; whatever happens will happen and we are trying to see if we can build products around it,” he said.
Beyond the larger metabolic health and healthy longevity seeker buckets, the GLP-1 and active nutrition category can be further segmented into three sub-groups: products for GLP-1 users, GLP-1 adjacent products, and products for post-GLP-1 users.
Demand for GLP-1 slowing down, despite low-cost generics
Recent reports noted that despite the availability of low-cost generic GLP-1 medications in India, demand did not hit initial expectations and seems to be slowing down.
Bloomberg reported on July 8 that the monthly sales of GLP-1 drugs in India grew 2.3% in June, nearly six times lower than the growth rate of 12.1% in May and 58.4% in April, citing data from market research firm Pharmarack.
Since the semaglutide patent expired in India in March this year, generic products have quickly entered the market and some are priced at INR1,290 per month - 90% lower than the branded Wegovy.
The Indian active nutrition consumer—the metabolic manager
When it comes to identifying India’s active nutrition consumers are, GLP-1 users represent only one-fifth of the equation.
They fall under the group that Vijayaraghavan calls “the metabolic manager” and also consist of individuals who are keen on managing their blood sugar level and weight. These are outcome-driven individuals.
In fact, active metabolic health is a vast but untapped category in India.
The diabetic population in India is estimated around 90 million, with an even larger pre-diabetic population of approximately 136 million. Hypertension is also prevalent, with 207 million diagnosed.
For the active metabolic consumer, managing weight, muscle mass, insulin sensitivity and inflammation through nutrition will be key, Vijayaraghavan noted.
“We know that Indians tend to develop metabolic risk much earlier than the Western world,” he said. “In other words, more Indians are getting into a metabolic risk situation earlier, and there is a longer phase for active nutrition brands to manage this. This is also exactly where I think a lot of companies and brands are actively participating.”
According to a study published in Diabetologia in March 2022, Asian Indians have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes compared with white Europeans, as well as a younger age of onset.
For instance, the prevalence of young-onset diabetes with normal body mass index (BMI) was 9.3% among white Europeans but nearly three to five times higher at 24% to 39% among Asian Indians. Researchers have attributed this to a lower genetically determined beta cell function.
The Indian active nutrition consumer—the longevity seeker and the others
The “longevity seeker” is emerging alongside “the metabolic manager” as a distinct and growing segment of active nutrition consumers in India.
Vijayaraghavan described these consumers as individuals typically between the age of 45 and 65 who are active by choice. They are motivated by having a higher quality of life and tend to earn higher incomes, but these individuals are deeply underserved in India.
The other three groups of active nutrition consumers in India are “the goal chaser”, “the committed regular” and “the aspiring discoverer”.
Of these three, “the goal chasers” are performance-focused athletes who are well informed about functional ingredients and are the highest spenders across the five active nutrition consumer segments.
Meanwhile, the “committed regular” tends to exercise three to four times per week and is label-aware and lifestyle driven, whereas the “aspiring discoverer” is social media-savvy and focused on products that support energy, immunity, hair and skin health.
Across India, structured fitness events like HYROX and marathons are quickly gaining traction.
For instance, over 69,000 participants have joined the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2026 and there are now more than 10,000 HYROX registered athletes in India since its launch in 2023, Vijayaraghavan said
“This shows that events are going to be ‘commitment devices’ [for nutrition uptake],” he added. “When people sign up for these, what they want is to improve their health, and if you want to improve your health, they will look at nutrition and supplementation. The potential of every participant getting into this space is an opportunity for the supplement brands.”
