STAT+: Novo Nordisk, seen as lagging in obesity drug race, says it’s playing the long game
Novo Nordisk is seen as having fallen behind in the race for new obesity drugs. It argues it is playing the long game.
How did Novo Nordisk get to the position it’s in now — with its stock halved over the past year and the company widely seen as trailing Eli Lilly in the weight loss market it once led?
“I’m not sure I fully accept the premise of the question,” Martin Lange, Novo’s head of development, responded.
At the American Diabetes Association meeting in Chicago this week, Novo executives argued the company is not falling behind. Studies have yet to show the full weight loss potential of next-generation candidates such as CagriSema and amycretin, they said. And, they added, Novo is focused on developing treatments that can offer consumers a range of options besides maximizing their weight loss, depending on how fast people want to lose weight, how willing they are to tolerate certain side effects, and what other diseases they want to address.
