2025-05-22
19 分钟In the world of big pharma, this is the sound of liquid gold.
An assembly line in Denmark fills glass vials with semaglutide.
It's the active ingredient in the injectable drug that's become a bona fide cultural phenomenon.
Where would you say Ozempic ranks in terms of successful drugs that you've covered?
One of the most successful of all time.
It's up there from a financial perspective, but also just from a cultural impact perspective.
It's one of the biggest deals.
That's rare.
Tell me about the company behind this blockbuster drug.
Well, the company is Novo Nordisk, which is based in Denmark,
and they've been around for about 100 years.
Most of that time, probably a lot of Americans never heard of it.
Over the last decade,
our colleague Pete Loftus has watched Novo Nordisk grow into a pharmaceutical juggernaut.
Novo is one of the most valuable companies in Europe by stock market capitalization,
thanks to the spectacular success of Ozempic and its sister drug, Wagovi.
Last year...
Their combined sales of just those two drugs were over $26 billion.
Wow.
For Ozempic, I think it was up about 25% from the year before.