Australia’s biggest pharmacy chain, Chemist Warehouse, has reported a boom in sales linked to the celebrity-driven trend of weight-loss drugs.

Since buying the pharmacy giant in February 2025,  Sigma Healthcare revealed on Thursday a 15 per cent surge in revenue to $10.8 billion in the financial year.

The growth was driven by new stores across its Australian and overseas networks and a 75 per cent sales surge in GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.

“GLP-1s have provided a structural tailwind, which we expect to continue,” chief executive Vikesh Ramsunder told an earnings briefing on Thursday.

And options for the drug are expected to continue to widen for customers.

“What’s interesting for me is when the oral dose will be registered in Australia — I truly believe that’s a real tailwind for the business,” Ramsunder said.

“If the government puts it onto the PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme), which is obviously still being negotiated, and the oral dose comes into Australia, I think the market size starts to grow materially.”

Celebrities have normalised the use of weight-loss drugs, with stars like Rebel Wilson admitting she took Ozempic to help her lose weight, and the trend has been catching on.

Sigma posted a normalised net profit after tax of $732.3 million for 2025/26, up 23 per cent on the previous year, while reducing its debt to a still hefty $663 million.

There are now almost 660 Chemist Warehouse stores globally, including 560 across Australia, 75 in New Zealand and 18 in Ireland, which grew sales by 45 per cent and turned a profit for the first time.

Including Sigma’s other brands like Amcal, DDS and Guardian, it owns and runs nearly 1,000 pharmacies worldwide.

The company declared a final dividend of two cents per share, meeting its target to pay out between half and 70 per cent of the year’s bottom-line profit.

Despite the sales and earnings growth, the result was deemed mixed by market analysts, who had expected higher sales growth for the Australian business.

Sigma shares fell more than six per cent in morning trading to $2.66 before recovering to $2.73 heading into lunch.

Chemist Warehouse has delivered double-digit like-for-like sales growth for roughly a decade, and Ramsunder said the group was targeting the same in the years to come.

“Our 2027 financial year agenda is clear: grow the network, drive operating leverage, enhance product differentiation and convert today’s platform into sustainable profit and cash generation,” he said.

Furthermore, as living costs continued to weigh on Australian households, prices would continue to be a strategic focus.

“We are a very value-centric, consumer-facing organisation, and we will remain the customer’s friend,” Ramsunder said.

“We’ll continue to be very competitive moving forward.”

-with AAP