Rare are the laboratories to celebrate their hundredth candle while displaying such brilliant health. And even less so in such a tense global economic context. For two years, the dizzying rise of Novo Nordisk has panicked all the counters. Including those of the economy of Denmark, its homeland, whose growth in 2023 would be largely due to the good performance of the pharmaceutical industrialist, according to analysts at the country’s largest bank, Danske Bank.
After having dethroned the luxury giant LVMH at the end of September 2023 in first place in the European market capitalization rankings, the Dane has just broken a new record. On Thursday, March 7, its valuation jumped 8% to stand at 566 billion dollars (around 517 billion euros), beating the American Tesla, whose boss, Elon Musk, ironically history, unwittingly contributed to making the laboratory’s latest star drug known to the general public, by extolling its merits on the social network X in 2022.
It is precisely this global craze for Wegovy, a weight loss treatment for patients suffering from obesity or overweight, and available only by prescription, which explains the renewed vitality of Novo Nordisk in recent years. Because until 2021, when its injectable drug obtained approval from the American Medicines Agency for its marketing, the pharmaceutical laboratory hardly attracted attention, despite its status as the world’s leading manufacturer of antidiabetics.
Certainly, the latter assured it comfortable income and regular annual growth, but the laboratory struggled to excite investors and flourish outside of this field. The launch in 2017 of a new treatment to fight type 2 diabetes, Ozempic, an analogue of GLP-1 (it “mimics” the action of this digestive hormone), however, will change the situation.
Taken aback by his success
Because this product, in addition to its properties in regulating blood sugar, also turns out, to everyone’s surprise, to be particularly promising in weight loss. Enough to give ideas to the Danish giant, which then hastened to offer it in the treatment of obesity under the name Wegovy. A bet that turns out to be a winner.
In 2023, the laboratory garnered 31.1 billion euros in sales (+ 36% at constant exchange rate over one year), including 5.6 billion euros thanks to drugs against obesity (Wegovy, but also, to a lesser extent, Saxenda, older and more modestly effective). A great performance, while the Dane is still in the early stages of marketing his new star, and it is currently only available in a handful of countries (United States, Denmark, Norway, Germany, United Kingdom , Iceland, Switzerland and United Arab Emirates).
You have 52.88% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.