Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has entered a recent chapter in its 100-year history — because of its newfound success with two products: Ozempic and Wegovy.
The drugs are once-weekly injectables of a medicine called semaglutide, prescribed for Type 2 diabetes and weight reduction. Their skyrocketing popularity has boosted Novo Nordisk to recent heights.
Novo Nordisk’s share price has greater than quadrupled up to now five years, making it Europe’s most beneficial company by market cap.
“It’s clear that no one had expected that it could be taking off this quickly,” said Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen in August. “All of us along knew that obesity was a serious chronic disease also when most others didn’t see it like that. So we knew we were onto something big.”
In 2018, the primary full 12 months with Ozempic available on the market, Novo Nordisk’s net sales were 111.8 billion Danish krone, or $17.7 billion, using a median exchange rate on the time.
Within the last three months of 2022, U.S. health-care providers wrote greater than 9 million prescriptions for Ozempic, Wegovy and other diabetes and obesity drugs, in response to analytics firm Trilliant Health.
Ozempic accounted for greater than 65% of total prescriptions as of the tip of 2022.
And it was only up from there: In the primary six months of 2023, sales of Ozempic and Wegovy rose by 58% and 363%, respectively.
“There has not been any performance near what we have seen over the past 12 months or two,” said Jared Holz, health care sector specialist at Mizuho, adding that semaglutide alone could possibly be value as much as $300 billion annually over time.
Semaglutide falls under a drug class called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic GLP-1 receptors within the body and produce more insulin, helping to lower blood sugar levels and reduce appetite.
Novo Nordisk’s treatments are usually not the one GLP-1 treatments available, but they’re the one semaglutide products currently on the U.S. market, as the corporate holds a patent until 2032.
Eli Lilly has developed its own GLP-1 drug, tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro, and other corporations, similar to Pfizer, are creating their very own injectables. Mounjaro was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for Type 2 diabetes in May 2022. It isn’t yet approved for weight reduction
Watch the video to learn more.
Correction: Mounjaro was approved by the FDA for Type 2 diabetes in May 2022. An earlier version misstated its status.
