Pharma’s big push for a new generation of obesity drugs

FIVE YEARS ago Novo Nordisk was a boring Danish drugmaker whose diabetes medications were reliably profitable. The only time the company made headlines was when it was caught up in complaints about the high cost of insulin. Then in 2021 a trial of a higher dose of its diabetes drug, Ozempic, showed that people taking it lost weight. A great deal of weight—up to 15% of their body mass. Excitement about the drug has kept Novo Nordisk in the headlines. Its market value has nearly quadrupled in the past five years. Earlier this month it reached $444bn, handbagging LVMH, a purveyor of luxury goods, off its perch as Europe’s most valuable company. Novo Nordisk’s main rival, Eli Lilly, which has a similar drug called Mounjaro (tirzepatide), is worth $522bn, more than four times what it was at the start of 2019.