Novo Nordisk , one of Denmark’s biggest companies has in September 2023 overthrown french billionaire Bernard Arnault owner of LVMH worlds biggest luxury goods company as the most valuable company in EU. That is measured on paper of course. That is a remarkable achievement for a country that has a population of only 5.8 million. And if not for a loose immigration policy it would have its population decreasing sharply. The up tick in valuation of the company in the stock market happened when the company released reports suggesting their new drug Wegovy cuts the risk of heart attacks and strokes by 20 %.
At the same time under the list of side effects include Thyroid tumors including cancer so i don’t really understand the enthusiasm of the stock speculators. The drug helps you lose weight but it might give you cancer, no thank you in that situation i prefer to exercise and try to eat right, see if something good comes out of it. The company specializes in diabetes products such as insulin for many years while Wegovy and Ozempic is an obesity treatment drug. Novo Nordisk has been very successful for a long time and is a well known name in Danish households. They have been in this very lucrative market for many years. Novo Nordisk makes lifesaving drugs and only three companies make these drugs , the other two are Eli Lilly and Sanofi. In 2016 Berine Sanders drew attention to the fact that nearly 30 million Americans live with diabetes and many need insulin to survive. The amount of people who need insulin has increased exponentially in the whole world and the price of the drug has increased even faster. From 2010 to 2015, the price of Lantus (made by Sanofi) went up by 168 percent; the price of Levemir (made by Novo Nordisk) rose by 169 percent; and the price of Humulin R U-500 (made by Eli Lilly) soared by 325 percent. Obviously these facts suggest that there might be some kind of price coordination , since this is strictly illegal all the above mentioned companies deny this.
Credit to Mr Bernie Sanders for fighting for the man on the street. He is a big advocate of the Scandinavian health system , but the Scandinavien health system is far from perfect and it has its own problems with Novo Nordisk. In 2006 the district attorney of Sweden Nils Erik Schultz suspected Novo Nordisk of bribes and 200 Swedish doctors and nurses who had a leisure travel to South Africa paid by Novo Nordisk of accepting the bribe. In July 2023 the European Medicines Agency is looking into reports on Novo Nordisk obesity drugs and its side effects such as suicidal thoughts and self-injury. The current CEO of Novo Nordisk Holding which has a controlling 28% stake in Novo Nordisk and is the top guy sitting on the money is Mr Kasim Kutay, a investment banker who worked for Morgan Stanley for 18 years. Born in Alexandria Egypt,his parents came from Turkiye and Syria. It remains to be seen if it is going to be possible to lose weight by just taking a pill in the future and European health control institutions will face a strong pushback from a company that is valued at more than 423 billion dollars , the hole of Denmark’s GDP amounted to 390 billion dollars in 2022.
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