Obesity remains the main growth area for Novo Nordisk, but the Danish pharmaceutical company\u2019s strategy also focuses on greater diversification, from cardiovascular conditions to liver diseases. We met Mike Doustdar, CEO of Novo Nordisk, in Milan at the EASD congress to discuss the company\u2019s prospects, the sustainability of obesity treatments and the next generation of medicines, including new mechanisms of action and oral formulations.<\/p>\n
You stated that obesity remains a key focus of your leadership. What proportion of Novo\u2019s future growth do you expect to come from diabetes and obesity, and how much will need to come from diversification?<\/p>\n
There is no breakdown by percentage across therapeutic areas, but diabetes and obesity remain the main drivers of growth as we prepare to launch the next wave of innovation. At the same time, we anticipate significant growth in the areas of haematological and endocrine disorders, cardiovascular diseases and liver diseases. This will enable us to build a larger and more diversified company by 2035.<\/p>\n
You are emphasising that obesity requires long-term treatment. How can chronic treatment be made sustainable for patients and for the healthcare system?<\/p>\n
The average duration of treatment with our medicines, as well as with those of our competitors, is six to nine months, depending on the country, and is very low compared with other chronic conditions. Obesity needs to be tackled differently, and we must ensure that insurance companies and funding bodies understand this too. But from the perspective of the healthcare system and society, it is precisely the failure to intervene that is unsustainable. If we allow obesity to continue to rise, along with its associated comorbidities and resulting conditions \u2013 type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular, liver and kidney diseases, and certain obesity-related cancers \u2013 society will not be sustainable. We have shown that, by treating patients with semaglutide, people take five fewer sick days each year. To widen access, it will be essential to involve general practitioners. We currently have a weekly injection and, in Italia, we will soon be launching oral semaglutide in tablet form as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Obesity remains the main growth area for Novo Nordisk, but the Danish pharmaceutical company\u2019s strategy also focuses on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[272],"class_list":["post-179971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novo-nordisk","tag-novo-nordisk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117392175616644047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179971","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=179971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}