Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar Talks Drug Sales

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. It is one of the big stories of the morning. What is happening with Novo is fascinating, as you say, company coming out this morning, cutting revenue, missing on a number of metrics. But look at the share price last time I checked, and it was just up on the screen, just a moment ago, up by what one one on a bit percent? Does that signal maybe that the market believes that this causer, this Q three is the bottom. Let's ask Mike Dusta,

What I can tell you is that the first nine months of the year fifteen percent profit a sales girl time ten percent profit growth is not so bad at all compared to our peers. But I think that when you look at it quarter by quarter has been a headwind and bringing the quarterly growth rates lower. If you project our numbers for the full year, actually you see that quarter four should be in negative territory so that you see.

Mathematically the low point. The low point is still to come, but things get better from there.

There's for sure a headwind against us.

Having said this, we are in the business of marathons and not sprints. So there is huge amount of unmet need, with many patients still not on our medications or not on any medications.

And I look incredibly.

Forward, of course, as we go forward taking over this new job, making sure that the expand the market and get to those people.

You've been in the job for ninety one days. You haven't let the grass grow under your feet. You're already talking about cost cuts you will talk about in a minute. You've launched a big M and a deal. Is this the new Novo? Is this a more dynamic, aggressive Nova? Notice?

Under your tenure, the success we have had with obesity has meant that a lot of companies, pretty much all pharma companies out there, has gone excite about what we do. So that is good from a patients perspective. Okay, more players will come in, but at the same time we have to make sure we can outperform the competition from a shareholder perspective.

So my job is to really.

Make sure that we are ready for the headwind that we clearly are seeing coming towards us.

When are you going to match Eli Lilly in terms of performance? They head results a few days ago, they will knock out. When are you going to be able to match that kind of performance? You talk about a kind of performance culture here.

Again, my job is to put the patient in the center of what I do, and not necessarily just my competitor. We watch them, We take all of our competitors seriously, but there are hundreds of millions of people out there that are suffering from diabetes and obesity that no one is right now addressing. My job is to sustainably lead our self thoughts that aim.

How does Matt Sarah help you do that MATTERA.

Has some of the best complimentary assets to our own phenomenal pipeline.

So when the ambition is.

In billions and not millions, you need basically all the great assets to get great.

Assets, but complementary Okay, So why do you need complementary assets because you've got you've got all these products. Why do you need to go and buy this business?

Because obesity and diabetes is not a single disease, It's an individual disease. You basically have different preferences. Take a look at the great vigor VI pill we're about to launch in US. Well, that's for people that don't like injection. Sure they would like to lose weight, but they don't have a viable offering from.

Us or the competitors very similar products. And the question that I've listened to a lot of analysts, talk to a lot of analysts, and the question they keep coming up with is does this seem to signal maybe that you don't believe in the current Novo portfolio?

Absolutely not, Absolutely not.

We are in a situation where every single patient has a different preference and we need to have the product offering that matches that they.

Got a monthly weekly. Is that really the big difference?

Well, we saw that the weekly was a big difference to the daily one. So I would say for montly it does make a difference. For some probably yes, for some probably yes. Others will prefer to have a weekly product.

Is it more important to find AS it doesn't buy its than Novo does buyas Because that's another thing I.

Hear is my focus is on Nova orders. I am am. You know.

The way I see this is there's a company for seller's a buyer and a seller, and basically one of the buyers doesn't like the price and the other one does.

My job is to make sure I look at.

What we did and we would very much benefit from Matzera's assets, and we'll put the right price up there.

For our what's the right price could you get?

The current price in the market has been you know, addressed by Matsell's shareholders, and then we'll see.

Where this goes.

Do you think fights it comes back? I have no idea, You have no idea, But if they do, will you go high how important this is.

And make an announcement today on how I'm going to treat how do you.

Make sure you don't overpay for this asset.

By having actually looked very deeply into the data. As I mention, we know this company very well. We have seen this company for a long time and we like what we have seen.

Okay, you're going to London, I think tomorrow? Right?

Possibly?

Okay, are you going to the States after that?

I'm looking at the whole world, so I'm going to go everywhere.

So the rumor is the basically you're going to be in the White House on Thursday and You're going to tell me that the deal's not done with the Trump administration on pricing, and I'm going to ask you how close are you there for to a deal.

I'm going to say that we are very much aligned with the purpose of the negotiations and the discussions we're having with the administration. We both would like to provide access to many more patients out there, affordable access.

Are you close?

So we are discussing very closely.

Okay, okay, closely. One of the parts of the discussion I'm assuming has to be about what is happening with copycats, about the companies that are producing drugs that were allowed when there were shortages but now using loopholes to maybe continue to produce products. And I'm wondering whether or not a deal with the White House would include maybe closing some of those loopholes. What are the compounders doing in terms of your business?

I can tell you is that we have not been We have been quite surprised on how the compounding has gotten started. Taking an API, there are ingredients of a medication that has not been approved by FDA, and injecting that into human beings is something very far from what we have been educated in this industry, so we will continue to lobby for you that this is simply not right. Just I will not get into the details of the deal, as you could imagine.

We will wait and see what the deal looks like later this week. Thank you very much for stoping by to see us. We really appreciate it. And thank you for inviting us to the headquarters. We really appreciate that as well. Mike Dister, the CEO of Novo Nordice,