{"id":123864,"date":"2026-07-07T03:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/123864\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:12:32","slug":"wegovy-falters-novo-nordisk-korea-restructures-executives-and-organization-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/123864\/","title":{"rendered":"Wegovy Falters… Novo Nordisk Korea Restructures Executives and Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Integration of Obesity and Diabetes Divisions
Korean Physician Appointed as Head of CMR\n <\/p>\n

Korean affiliate of Novo Nordisk, which opened the domestic glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) obesity drug market with Wegovy, has carried out a major organizational restructuring and executive reshuffle. This move is seen as a strategic shift to strengthen its position in the Korean market as it faces increasing threats to its top spot in the global obesity treatment market from latecomer Eli Lilly.<\/p>\n

According to industry sources on July 7, Novo Nordisk Korea merged its obesity and diabetes business divisions earlier this month. This decision is interpreted as an effort to speed up decision-making and concentrate resources by unifying two previously separate organizations.<\/p>\n

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Along with the organizational integration, executive appointments were also made. Julie Honore Broe, Senior Director who had overseen the Clinical, Medical, and Regulatory (CMR) division\u2014including clinical trial design and execution, management of the medical department, and handling regulatory affairs such as with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and product approvals\u2014has stepped down. A Korean physician with experience in the domestic pharmaceutical industry was appointed as her successor earlier this month.<\/p>\n

A university hospital professor who serves as an executive at a domestic obesity and diabetes society commented, “Replacing a foreign executive with someone familiar with local circumstances signals a renewed commitment to the Korean market.” A Novo Nordisk Korea representative stated, “This is a routine organizational restructuring.”<\/p>\n

According to pharmaceutical data analysis platform BRP Insight, Eli Lilly\u2019s Mounjaro (active ingredient: tirzepatide) held a 78% share of the domestic injectable obesity treatment market as of May. Wegovy (active ingredient: semaglutide) held only 15%. Mounjaro, which was launched in August 2023, overtook Wegovy\u2014despite Wegovy entering the Korean market earlier in 2024\u2014in less than a year.<\/p>\n

The sales gap is also significant. In the first quarter of this year, Mounjaro posted sales of about 323.2 billion won in the domestic market, more than triple Wegovy\u2019s sales of approximately 104 billion won. Novo attempted to defend its position by cutting Wegovy\u2019s wholesale price by about 40% in response to Mounjaro\u2019s launch, but was unable to prevent a decline in market share. In addition, since last month, Lilly has further expanded its lineup by supplying high-dose Mounjaro products of 12.5 mg and 15 mg in Korea.<\/p>\n

Novo Nordisk’s disadvantage is not limited to the Korean market. In the United States, Zepbound, another tirzepatide-based obesity treatment, leads Wegovy by over 100,000 weekly prescriptions and is nearing a 60% market share. The global battle for market leadership is thus being replayed in Korea.<\/p>\n

Since last year, Novo Nordisk has reorganized its management amid sluggish performance and declining stock prices. As Wegovy\u2019s growth slowed and the share price plunged, last year, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen was replaced as CEO by the newly appointed Mike Doustdar. The company also undertook large-scale restructuring, cutting about 9,000 jobs\u2014roughly 11% of its global workforce.<\/p>\n

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The domestic obesity treatment market is expected to become even more competitive in the second half of the year. In addition to the ongoing rivalry between Novo and Lilly, Hanmi Pharmaceutical plans to launch Korea\u2019s first domestically developed GLP-1 obesity drug with enhanced price competitiveness within the second half of the year. The drug demonstrated a weight loss effect of up to 30% in phase 3 clinical trials and is targeting annual domestic sales in the 100 billion won range.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 The Asia Business Daily. All rights reserved. Unauthorized AI training and use prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Integration of Obesity and Diabetes DivisionsKorean Physician Appointed as Head of CMR Korean affiliate of Novo Nordisk, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[19625,19626,19627,38,6521,272,1158,19270,2334,19624],"class_list":["post-123864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novo-nordisk","tag-economic","tag-issue","tag-korea","tag-news","tag-newspaper","tag-novo-nordisk","tag-politics","tag-society","tag-south-korea","tag-the-asia-business-daily"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116876512427730384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}