Wegovy weight-loss drug maker targets European governments

Wegovy weight loss drug: Novo Nordisk CEO speaks about its plans for Europe. 

Novo Nordisk aims to convince Europeans governments to pay for its obesity drug Wegovy for the most overweight or those with co-morbidities, its chief executive has said, emphasising both the medical and cost benefits of the treatment.

Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen's comments were the most detailed yet on the drugmaker's strategy for expanding in Europe. 

Wegovy is the first-to-market in a new class of highly effective weight-loss drugs. Used alongside changes to diet and exercise, it leads to an average weight loss of around 15%.

The self-injection drug has transformed the fortunes of Novo, whose shares have surged about 165% since Wegovy's US launch two years ago. It has also captured the attention of patients, investors, and even celebrities.

Earlier this month, the Danish drugmaker raised its full-year profit and sales forecasts for a second time. 

Mr Jorgensen said his company, now the second most valuable in Europe, was in uncharted territory. He said:

This is a very unusual situation to be in for a pharmaceutical company because typically when you launch medicines, you have a relatively well defined population that you're going to serve.

"We're dealing with perhaps a billion patients around the world," he said, adding it would "take quite some years" before the company can satisfy the whole market.

Analysts estimate the obesity market could be worth as much as $100bn (€92bn) by the end of the decade as the race to develop weight-loss drugs heats up. The lion's share may be claimed by frontrunners Novo and its US rival Eli Lilly. Amgen, Pfizer, and smaller biotech companies are also developing weight-loss drugs.

Since its launch in June 2021, Wegovy has been flying off the shelves in the US, where more than 40% of the population is obese. But Novo has struggled to keep up with demand even as it has added production capacity.

That experience, coupled with the subsequent launches in Denmark and Norway, has taught the company that it is crucial to work with health authorities to get Wegovy to the patients most in need, because governments will not be able to pay for everyone in their population who is obese to take the drug.

But it so far appears that many people are willing to pay out of their own pockets for Wegovy, Mr Jorgensen said. 

He said Novo would introduce Wegovy in more countries, but did not say where or when and added it was "trying to constrain all these launches" to make them manageable. Novo has also had problems with its contract manufacturer. 

Reuters reported in July that Catalent's factory in Brussels that fills Wegovy injection pens had repeatedly breached US sterile-safety rules in recent years and staff had failed to perform required quality checks. 

• Reuters