COPENHAGEN, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Novo Nordisk plans to launch its hugely popular Wegovy weight-loss drug in more countries, albeit in a "constrained" manner in order to meet huge demand, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said on Friday.

"We can see that the demand for the medicine is so strong, that we actually have to be more intentional in how we actually get through to the patients we would like to get through to and how we collaborate with healthcare systems," Jorgensen said at a Reuters Newsmaker event on Friday.

The Danish company's injectable Wegovy is the first to market in a new class of highly effective weight-loss drugs. Used alongside changes to diet and exercise, Wegovy leads to an average weight loss of around 15%.

Earlier this month, a late-stage large-scale trial showed Wegovy also has a clear cardiovascular benefit, giving a boost to Novo's hopes of positioning it as more than a lifestyle drug.

Last month, Novo launched Wegovy in Germany, its first big European market, where weight-loss therapies are also classified as lifestyle drugs, meaning public health insurance plans that cover about 90% of Germans are barred from covering them.

The volumes that the Danish drugmaker has delivered to the country so far have fallen short of strong demand in the first month since its debut.

Jorgensen said the company was planning to launch the drug in more countries while at the same time "trying to constraint all these launches."

"This is a very unusual situation to be in for pharmaceutical company because typically when you launch medicines, you have a relative well defined population that you're going to serve," Jorgensen said.

"We're dealing with perhaps a billion patients around the world," he said.

Jorgensen also said Novo would work with European healthcare systems to ensure less affluent, but often most obese, people get access to Wegovy.

"In Europe, we would aim to seek reimbursement for those patients with the highest BMI, have co-morbidities, and perhaps also those less fortunate from a socio-economic point of view,"

(Reporting by Maggie Fick and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen Editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Potter)