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![A box of Ozempic, a semaglutide injection drug used for treating type 2 diabetes made by Novo Nordisk, is seen at a Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, U.S. March 29, 2023.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/d19d6a6b012f56ea57cd57696950e154.jpg)
It seems weight-loss medicine are usually not only a US phenomenon.
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has been “surprised” by the readiness of Europeans to pay for weight-loss drugs out of pocket, the corporate’s chief govt says. And now Novo Nordisk goals to spend money on rising provide to fulfill rising demand.
“It’s maybe the primary time that you simply see a big inhabitants prepared to pay out of pocket for medication,” Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen informed The Monetary Occasions in an interview revealed Sunday.
Gross sales of the corporate’s weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes therapy Ozempic hit $33.7 billion final 12 months, up 36%. Within the US alone, the place greater than 40% of the grownup inhabitants is overweight, accounted for 45% of those sales.
The corporate’s merchandise additionally work: With Wegovy, contributors misplaced a median of 15% of their physique weight in a trial lasting greater than a 12 months. In Europe and the Center East, gross sales virtually doubled to $1 billion in 2023 after Wegovy was made obtainable within the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Iceland, and the United Arab Emirates.
In Europe, 80% of gross sales are paid for out-of-pocket by customers, with the rest reimbursed by medical health insurance or states, based on Novo Nordisk. Within the US, greater than 90% of gross sales are utterly or partially lined by medical health insurance, the corporate stated.
Excessive demand has additionally led to provide issues. To persuade healthcare suppliers to extend prescriptions, the drugmaker is in talks with them about new pricing offers that may unfold the prices of Wegovy across many years.
The hovering demand for blockbuster weight reduction medicine may end in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lily turning into the primary healthcare firms to achieve a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.
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