By Maggie Fick and Nikolaj Skydsgaard
LONDON/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Novo Nordisk's launch of obesity drug Wegovy in most of Europe will be slower than planned and the drug will likely not be sold in developing nations for a very long time, executives said on Tuesday, as demand booms in the United States. "Short term we are challenged because we cannot fully meet demand. But everyone can rest assured that we are strongly committed to make sure that patients over time will get the medicine they expect," Chief Executive Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen told a news conference. Wegovy, which launched in the U.S. in mid-2021, has propelled the company to record sales and its current position as the third biggest pharma company globally by market capitalisation, according to Refinitiv data.
A weekly injection of Wegovy leads to an average weight loss of around 15%, alongside changes to diet and exercise. Its impact is transforming the obesity market. But the Danish drugmaker is unable to keep up with demand even as it spends billions of dollars to increase its production capacity.
That has effectively delayed the launch in most of Europe, following the recent launch of Wegovy in Denmark and Norway. Novo Nordisk (CSE:NOVOb) has also had to overcome problems at a contract manufacturer.
Camilla Sylvest, executive vice president of commercial strategy and corporate affairs, did not respond directly to a question at the news conference about when the company would launch the drug in other European countries. She said the launch will be "a little bit slower than originally planned".
Jorgensen, the CEO, also said that infrastructure challenges, such as insufficient cold chain technology, in many developing countries poses a "significant challenge" in making Wegovy available in those nations:
"I think it will be a very long time before a product like Wegovy can go there."
During a presentation before the news conference, the company shared statistics showing there are some 815 million obese people worldwide today, up from about 650 million in 2016. Novo Nordisk also said the number of people with obesity is forecast to rise to 1.5 billion by 2035.
The 2016 statistic comes from the World Health Organisation (WHO), while Novo Nordisk said the new numbers come from the World Obesity Federation, a UK-based charitable association made up of national obesity organizations, which has received funding from the company.
The WHO told Reuters last month that the new highly-effective weight loss drugs are not a “silver bullet” for addressing rapidly rising obesity rates.
One concern among health authorities and even investors is that company trials show that patients who stop taking Wegovy gradually regain most of the weight they had lost.
Research and development chief Martin Lange said that the company plans to investigate how to maintain the weight loss after stopping the drug. “Alternatively, maybe decreasing doses or switching to another intervention, but that is not where we are right now.”