NOVO NORDISK A/S 
By 
On rising obesity rates
"The growth in obesity is really linked to our current lifestyle. If you think about how each of us moves around society today, compared to when we were kids, I remember riding my bike to school in the morning. I feel guilty for having taken my children more by car. "I was in China last week and I realized that the situation has changed a lot compared to the first time I visited, 20 or 30 years ago, and there were a lot of bicycles on the roads. Today, there are a lot of cars. Bicycles have been replaced by electric bikes or scooters.
"There's a genetic component that plays a role in the development of body weight and obesity in different ways, but there's also a socioconomic dimension, and I think it's important that we look at obesity in a more holistic way, and generally diet and exercise go hand in hand with medical treatment.
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On trial results and patient feedback
"We've just published the key data from the cardiovascular outcomes trial, which show that we're reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease by 20%, which represents very significant health benefits."
"You have to add to that, of course, what it means for the individual living with obesity, which sometimes means that they are less active in society, perhaps less active in the labor market, and governments also see this as a trend that reduces potentially the number of people active in the labor market, and with aging populations, it's actually very significant to reverse these trends and have more people who can be active in the labor market and become taxpayers instead of consumers of healthcare."
"I've had conversations with some of the people who took part in the clinical trial and they've told me that, for the first time, they feel like they're taking back control of their lives. They are no longer obsessed with snacking, the next meal.... They feel they can get out of the house, out of the fridge. They can go out and be socially active."
"We've just analyzed the data from the SELECT study, which is now part of the evidence (for this class of drugs). We do not believe that there is a correlation between the use of these drugs and an increased risk of suicide or other safety issues that have been described.
On Novo's roll-out strategy in Europe
"... Our aim is to try and reach agreements with healthcare systems. And of course, it's a bit different from country to country. In Europe, where healthcare is generally state-funded, we would seek to obtain reimbursement for patients with the highest BMI, who have comorbidities, who are at risk of heart disease, or who are at risk of heart failure and who may also be less fortunate from a socio-economic point of view. We believe that no country will be able to fund care for all obese people.
"The launch in Germany is not about reaching every single person suffering from obesity, but about collaborating with the healthcare system and being part of this (governmental) program to fight obesity, in order to show that we have the right tools to do so.
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"When we launched the program in the US, we saw very, very strong uptake. Then we tried to launch in Denmark and Norway, which are much smaller markets, but again we saw very, very strong uptake. Today, we're trying to move into a larger market where we're trying to get into the healthcare system. So it's an attempt to test different commercial strategies, because we're finding that the demand for this drug is so strong that we have to be more careful about how we reach patients.
"It's not just about weight, it's about health and significantly improving outcomes for these people. If we look at patients who generate healthcare costs, we see that people suffering from obesity are among those who generate the highest costs in healthcare systems. By tackling this problem, we can relieve the burden on the healthcare system".
"... It's obvious that today we're limited in terms of volume. So it's not that we're in mass launch mode, but we will be launching our products in more and more countries...
"... Being proactive, trying to limit some of these launches and finding ways, different from country to country, to make sure we target our launches, I think is good for healthcare systems. And it's also good for us, because it means we're establishing obesity as a real disease with serious health benefits when we address these patients. And it will, of course, save money in the system. Over time, it is therefore possible to gradually extend treatment to a growing number of patients, while at the same time increasing production.
On supply
"I'd say this is a very unusual situation for a pharmaceutical company, because usually when you launch drugs, you have a relatively well-defined population that you're going to serve. In the case of obesity, we're dealing with a billion patients worldwide. In some of the countries we're talking about, half the population is basically patients and customers."
"When we launched our latest innovation, we found that doctors had accumulated patients. Patients were really mobilized, and we also found that payers were willing to pay. So we saw a radical shift in the demand curves we'd seen in the past."
"We're speeding up manufacturing. We're adding lines more or less regularly, and we'll continue to do so in the coming years. But it's not unlikely that we'll find ourselves in a situation where, as people become more aware of this opportunity, the number of people struggling with weight mobilizes.... So I think that for the foreseeable future, demand will outstrip what we can offer.
"We're starting the year with an externally contracted manufacturing line. We'll start next year perhaps with three of these lines, we're also investing..." "We're producing a lot, and a lot more every day. All our sites are running 24/7.
