The Year in Health: Chronic Diseases, GLP-1s, and AI Adoption

In 2025, the health sector was shaped by a combination of persistent structural challenges and targeted innovation, as chronic disease burden, therapeutic advances, and digital technologies continued to influence policy decisions, market dynamics, and care delivery models. Across global and regional contexts, health systems and industry stakeholders focused on managing long-term conditions, expanding access to emerging therapies and integrating new tools while addressing capacity and equity constraints.

Key developments during the year highlighted how chronic diseases, novel treatment categories, and AI are increasingly interconnected in shaping healthcare outcomes. International policy actions sought to strengthen coordinated responses to noncommunicable diseases and mental health, while the rapid evolution of the GLP-1 market underscored both the potential and the limitations of pharmaceutical innovation. In parallel, AI adoption progressed across clinical and preventive settings, prompting renewed attention to regulation, safety, and responsible implementation.

Together, these trends illustrate how 2025 reinforced the need for balanced approaches that align innovation with system readiness, governance, and long-term sustainability across the health sector.

Chronic Disease Care in the Spotlight

In 2025, the global and regional dialogue on chronic diseases underscored a dual imperative: the need for effective management and the urgency of integrated public health responses. Chronic diseases, comprising conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, and cancer,  continue to drive substantial health system demand and market expansion worldwide.

At the global policy level, 2025 saw a historic shift in how chronic diseases and mental health are addressed together. In December, world leaders at the UN General Assembly adopted a political declaration on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health, the first instrument to jointly frame these two major health priorities within an integrated strategy aimed at accelerating progress toward 2030 targets. The declaration acknowledged that NCDs cause the majority of premature deaths globally and that mental health disorders now affect more than 1 billion people, highlighting the scale and complexity of chronic care needs in both high- and low-income settings. 

Despite these policy gains, assessments from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal that progress against NCDs and mental health challenges is slowing in many regions, reinforcing the need for urgent, cost-effective interventions. WHO’s September report emphasizes that while there were mortality reductions due to NCDs in many countries between 2010 and 2019, the pace of improvement has decelerated, risking reversal of earlier gains, and underscoring the economic and social impact of chronic conditions when left unaddressed. 

These developments portray chronic diseases not only as a major clinical and economic burden, but also as a catalyst reshaping healthcare markets, public policy frameworks, and care delivery models globally. These trends underscore the need for continued innovation in therapeutics, system integration, and multi-sector cooperation to address both the biological and socio-clinical determinants of chronic disease outcomes.

The GLP-1 Market Grows

Within this broader context of chronic disease management, the rapid expansion of the GLP-1 market emerged as one of the most consequential therapeutic developments of 2025. In 2025, the GLP-1 therapeutic category solidified its position as one of the most dynamic segments in the global health industry, driven by policy validation, strategic competition among major pharmaceutical players, and expanding indications beyond glycemic control. 

Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first guideline endorsing GLP-1 therapies for the long-term treatment of obesity, recognizing it as a chronic disease and recommending these agents as part of comprehensive management strategies that include diet, physical activity, and structured care. WHO cautions that, even with production scale-up, fewer than 10% of eligible individuals may have access by 2030, flagging equity and system capacity as critical challenges for adoption. 

Commercial and competitive dynamics also intensified. Novo Nordisk resolved earlier supply constraints of its flagship injectable GLP-1 products Wegovy and Ozempic in the United States, stabilizing availability after shortages that had previously constrained patient access earlier in the year. This supply normalization was critical for maintaining market momentum through late 2025. Meanwhile, the company advanced its competitive positioning with the planned rollout of semaglutide-based GLP-1 therapies in key markets, such as the launch of semaglutide 2.4mg in Mexico starting in April 2025, expanding treatment options for patients with obesity and supporting broader regional market growth. 

Competition among large manufacturers sharpened during the year. Pfizer and Novo Nordisk engaged in a high-profile tussle over the acquisition of Metsera, an obesity and cardiometabolic clinical-stage biotech, highlighting the strategic value attributed to innovative pipelines in an increasingly crowded field. At the end, Pfizer won the bidding war for Metsera. Pfizer’s efforts to secure exclusive rights to emerging GLP-1 modalities, including an oral GLP-1 candidate in early-stage development with Shanghai Fosun’s YaoPharma, reflected a broader industry push to diversify delivery formats and expand market reach. 

AI in Health

In parallel, AI consolidated its role as a structural enabler of healthcare delivery, moving beyond pilot programs into broader operational use across clinical care, diagnostics, digital health, and preventive services. Health systems and companies increasingly turned to AI to address persistent workforce shortages, rising care demand, and the shift toward earlier intervention and personalization. As adoption accelerated, the year also brought sharper focus on regulatory readiness, safety frameworks, and the management of AI-driven risk, positioning governance as a parallel priority to innovation.

Market signals reinforced AI’s growing footprint in health and wellness. Credence Research projects that the AI-driven personalized nutrition and wellness market will expand from US$12.3 billion in 2023 to US$68.3 billion by 2032, supported by widespread use of wearables, mobile health applications, and continuous monitoring tools. These platforms increasingly integrate metabolic, genetic, and behavioral data to deliver individualized recommendations, reflecting a broader industry pivot toward data-enabled prevention and long-term health management. However, industry leaders caution that scale must be matched with safeguards as AI systems become more deeply embedded in decision-making processes.

In Latin America, 2025 marked a phase of consolidation and selective growth for AI-enabled health solutions rather than rapid expansion. According to LatamList, the share of regional healthtech startups incorporating AI rose from 14% to 20% between 2022 and 2024, with momentum carrying into 2025. Capital and innovation increasingly concentrated on diagnostics, biotechnology, mental health, and preventive care platforms, particularly in Mexico and Brazil. Regional founders note that technologies once considered speculative, including at-home hormone testing and real-time stress monitoring, gained broader market acceptance, signaling AI’s transition from emerging capability to an integrated component of healthcare delivery models.

The pace of AI adoption in healthcare is driven in part by market pressures and public expectations, says Waleed Mohsen, Founding CEO, Verbal. While AI can increase access and reduce operational burdens, he says the sector must avoid practices associated with rapid deployment in consumer technology. Healthcare “is not the place for moving fast and breaking things,” he adds, arguing that the long-term consequences of errors require more oversight than in other industries.