After this week, Copenhagen-headquartered Novo Nordisk released test data suggesting its jab weight loss Wegovy reduces the risk of heart attacks and the number of strokes in a fifth of patients, something extraordinary has happened.
The most valuable company in the country, Novo Nordisk, which has long been the most valuable company, as a result of a sharp increase in the price Novo Nordisk's shares have eclipsed the market value of the entire Danish domestic economy.
It is now on its way to becoming Europe's most valuable company, with first-half sales up 30 percent.
Operating profit also rose by a third as Novo Nordisk raised its forecast for 2023 due to a surge in demand.
The market mania reflects one of the biggest booms in the pharmaceutical sector in decades: anti-obesity shots. These drugs are expected to be worth $100 billion (£79 billion) a year by the mid-2030s, with both investors and companies racing to get their share.
Demand is already growing. This week, Eli Lilly became the world's most valuable medical company after announcing a 70 percent jump in sales of its rival anti-obesity drug.
Slimming shots 'likely to be generational's biggest drug category' , says Andy Richards, CBE, a veteran life sciences investor.
Those who produce, sell and invest in them receive huge rewards. . The UK is in danger of being left behind in the weight loss gold rush, and AstraZeneca and GSK seem to be caught off guard by the boom.
Ozempic, another drug developed by Novo Nordisk, has already become synonymous with this new market, which is rumored to , widely used in Hollywood and recognized by Boris Johnson.
Originally developed as a treatment for diabetes, its potential to fight obesity has been discovered as a lucrative side effect.
Boris Johnson admitted to using drugs to lose weight. Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images Europe
There is already another contender who threatens to outshine him: Munjaro.
Like Ozempic, Mounjaro was developed to treat diabetes. However, recent trial data have shown that patients can lose more than a quarter of their weight if they use Eli Lilly's drug for a long period of time or with intensive lifestyle changes. This is the highest weight loss rate seen in the last phase of clinical trials to date.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to approve it for the treatment of obesity and has accelerated consideration of the application.
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Sales are already growing even without authorization. Eli Lilly, the American company that developed the drug, sold Mounjaro nearly $1 billion in the three months to June, up 72% from the first three months of the year.
The company is struggling to keep up with demand by investing billions of dollars in new factories to make the drug.
The potential of these new obesity drugs goes beyond simply helping patients lose weight. . Preliminary results this week show that Novo Nordisk's top-selling drug, Wegovy, can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Wells Fargo analyst Mohit Bansal says: «Until now, these drugs have only been drugs for weight loss, but now they are much more.”
The first results raised the question of whether health care systems should provide their drugs by the head. According to Evan Zygerman, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, it is almost «unethical» not to offer these drugs to people at this time.
Sir John Bell, a UK bioscience champion, says the drugs are likely to become the «new statins» , a cholesterol-lowering drug that is among the most widely prescribed in the UK.
Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, says this could mean a «paradigm shift» for doctors to ditch the cocktail of other drugs meant to treat obesity-related illnesses. p>
Professor Sattar cautions, however, that this new class of drugs should not be seen as a silver bullet that can cure all diseases.
1702 Weight Loss Chart
“By the time you reach the level where you need these drugs, you will have heart disease and be living with obesity,” he said. “A lot of damage has already been done that cannot be repaired.
“You have already damaged your joints to a certain extent, you have already stretched your heart to a certain extent. We cannot think that these drugs alone will eliminate all the adverse effects that obesity causes.
Studies show that people who are obese may need to continue taking drugs like Wegovy or Mounjaro to lose weight.
Dr. Hakim Yadi OBE, chief executive of Closed Loop Medicine, says this means that «potentially you have a pharmaceutical blockbuster that people don't need to break away from, but in fact they can't break away from.»
With the help of the potential that these drugs could also have a positive effect on the risk of strokes and heart diseases, longer use may bring other benefits.
This huge potential for use explains why investors are scrambling to get a piece of the action.
While the development of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 has made huge money for companies like Pfizer, it has proved to be temporary. The market for slimming injections is much more resilient.
The absence of British pharmaceutical companies in this new space is conspicuous.
AstraZeneca is believed to be in the early stages of developing its own slimming drugs.
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GSK has yet to play the game and this situation is likely to draw criticism that chief executive Dame Emma Walmsley has failed to develop innovative drugs under her leadership.
The fact that British pharmaceutical the giants appear to have been caught raising fears that the UK will miss the gold rush.
Richards, a life sciences investor, says: «Companies like AstraZeneca could and should have been in the group, but they don't quite make it.»
Ozempic's further journey
Next generation weight loss drugs currently unavailable to the vast majority of people in the UK, although regulators recommend using Wegovy for adults with at least one weight-related medical condition such as heart disease and body mass index. (BMI) of at least 35 in the UK.
Up until this point, Novo Nordisk had prioritized its US shipments and refrained from selling to the UK. The drugs are expected to go on sale in the UK later this year and be available from pharmacies.
Strong questions remain about whether the NHS can afford to prescribe these drugs en masse. Medicines like Wegovy can cost over $1,000 a month in the US, while statins, which treat some obesity-related conditions, can cost as little as £1 a day.
Richards predicts a «huge standoff.» looms between these companies and payers» given the cost.
Sir John says: «Prescribing pressure will be strong, but the NHS drug budget, which is half that of all other countries, will benefit «. I can't stand it.»
Earlier this summer, the UK drug cost-effectiveness authority delayed approval of Eli Lilly's slimming injection for adults with diabetes, saying more evidence was needed before it could give green light.
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Dr Yadi says there will be pressure on the NHS to make sure «only the right patients get these drugs and use them appropriately.»
For companies looking to gain weight, loss hits and investors backing them, it's all in a footnote. The main issue is whether they can produce it fast enough to take advantage of the biggest new market that will open up in a generation.
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