Novo Nordisk (Ozempic)

**Ben Gilbert** (0:00)
All right, first episode back. Let's see if I can do this sleep deprived.

**David Rosenthal** (0:05)
You and me both, man. Is it you, is it you, is it you?

**Ben Gilbert** (0:25)
Welcome to season 14, episode 1 of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (0:33)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:34)
We are your hosts. Today's episode is on the company behind the sensational diabetes and weight loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. The company is Novo Nordisk. Now, when I first learned about Ozempic a few years ago, I thought, of course, this is going to be amazing for a lot of people and could also completely destroy the market for insulin. Those insulin companies better watch out. But here is the fascinating thing, listeners. Novo Nordisk is the company behind insulin, or at least one of the few big ones. Now, you might say, well, that's okay, because they're probably a big pharmaceutical company that's very diversified with lots of different drugs.

**David Rosenthal** (1:14)
Nope.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:15)
No. Novo Nordisk is unique in that the vast majority of their revenue is concentrated in the category of metabolic health. They have been the insulin and diabetes company for the last 100 years. And perhaps even more surprising, this pharma giant is unique in that they are owned and controlled by a non-profit foundation. The stats around weight, diabetes, and its impact on our society are staggering. There are 38 million Americans with diabetes. That's one in 10 people. Globally, that number is over 500 million with the disease. Diabetes costs the US alone more than $327 billion a year. And on the other side of things, in the weight category, around a billion people suffer from obesity worldwide. A billion, including 40% of the US population. If you expand that from obesity to overweight, 75% of Americans are technically overweight. It is really hard to imagine a bigger market to go after, which is why Novo Nordisk has become Europe's largest company surpassing even LVMH last year, David.

**David Rosenthal** (2:21)
Yeah, it's wild. I mean, there are no other disease and drug categories besides diabetes and obesity that this could be possible to have a company of this size, to have a pharma giant, pretty much just focused on this one area. Like, this is the Hermes of the pharma industry.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:39)
Yeah. So why is today in the early 2020s the moment in human history for these new GLP-1 drugs? Well, the crazy thing is, cimeglutide, the molecule in Ozempic and Wegovy, was pioneered back by Novo Nordisk with the first trial in 2008 for type 2 diabetes treatment. And it was built on research started in the early 90s. But here we are in 2023, almost three decades later, talking about it as a weight loss drug that sort of magically appeared out of nowhere, or that's at least the public perception of it. Incredibly, the fact that GLP-1 drugs could be used to reduce food intake was actually discovered way back in the mid 90s in the first sort of scientific publication about it. But only in 2021 did we finish the clinical trials that truly show how effective it can be.

**David Rosenthal** (3:27)
And as we'll see, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, this company is 100 years old. The history goes way back and is way more interesting than I think just about anybody knows.

**Ben Gilbert** (3:38)
Yep. Pharmaceuticals is without a doubt the most complex industry that we have ever studied. So to fully understand Novo Nordisk, we need to go back to a simpler time before the Food and Drug Administration, before all this industry consolidation and health care oligopolies, before there were treatments for everything we take for granted today. Antibiotics, vaccines for polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, you name it. That is where we will start our story. If you want to know every time an episode drops, you can sign up at acquired.fm slash email. These will also contain hints at what the next episode will be and follow up facts from previous episodes when we learn new information. Come talk about this episode with us after listening at acquired.fm slash slack. And if you want more from David and I, you should check out our second show, ACQ2, where we interview founders, investors and experts, often as follow ups to the topics on these episodes. Before we dive in, we want to briefly share that our presenting sponsor this season, which we are so pumped about, is JP. Morgan, specifically their incredible payments business.

**David Rosenthal** (4:39)
Yeah, we'll be talking about them in depth later in the episode, but we've known JP. Morgan for a long time. We both personally bank with them as does Acquired, but we really uncovered the breadth of JP. Morgan Payments as we went deep into our industry research for our Visa episode last year. Just like how we say here on Acquired that every company has a story, every company's story is powered by payments, and JP. Morgan Payments turns out to be a part of so many of our acquired companies' journeys. And it's not just the Fortune 500 They're also helping companies grow from seed to IPO and beyond.