[News Inside Companies] Danish Pharmaceutical Company Overtakes Louis Vuitton

Novo Nordisk, which surpassed French luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Mo?t Hennessy (LVMH) to become the largest company by market capitalization on the European stock market, is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Famous as the pharmaceutical company behind ‘Wegovy,’ a obesity injection popularized by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Novo Nordisk’s history is closely tied to insulin. It was established by purchasing the rights from Canadian surgeons Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who discovered insulin, with the support of Nobel laureate August Krogh, who sought to treat his wife diagnosed with diabetes.

Starting as Nordisk Insulin Laboratory in 1923, it merged with Novo in 1989 to become Novo Nordisk, the world’s leading pharmaceutical company in the insulin market. A century ago, diabetes was an incurable disease. Most patients survived on a low-calorie diet of less than 450 Kcal per day and often died within 1 to 2 years. The widespread distribution of insulin significantly improved the lives and survival rates of diabetes patients.

It is also a leader in the obesity treatment field. Novo Nordisk expanded its research and development capabilities, which began with insulin, into obesity treatments closely related to diabetes, with Saxenda and Wegovy as representative examples. Saxenda, a once-daily injection, was approved as a diabetes treatment in 2010 and has been marketed as an obesity treatment since 2018, gaining popularity. Wegovy, administered once weekly, is based on Ozempic, which was developed as a diabetes treatment. Recently, Wegovy has attracted attention for its effectiveness in cardiovascular diseases. According to Novo Nordisk’s own research, a clinical trial involving 17,604 adults aged 45 and older who were overweight and had cardiovascular disease was conducted for up to five years, showing that Wegovy reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death by 20%. Approximately 88% of Novo Nordisk’s total sales come from the obesity and diabetes sectors.

They are also developing a new drug for Alzheimer’s patients. This too has been nourished by their experience in diabetes treatment. Clinical trials are underway for an Alzheimer’s treatment using ‘semaglutide,’ which is currently used for diabetes and obesity treatment.

Meanwhile, Wegovy was approved by the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in April as a treatment for adult obesity patients. However, it has not yet been officially launched and cannot be used domestically.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.