Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News Now.
For our top corporate story of the morning, Nova Noorda shares rising and pre market trading. This is the drug maker wins approval to sell a pill version of its blockbuster obesity drug. We Govie joining us now with a special guest, Katie Greifeld.
Hey Katie, Hey Anriy, Thank you very much joining me now. I'm pleased to say is the CVO of Novo Nordis. His name is Mike Dostar. Mike, great to have you with us. Just to set the scene here when it comes to the US market, you've been losing share to your rival Eli Lily for a couple of years now, but with this approval you have an important first mover
advantage when it comes to oral GLP ones. Given that you expect to start selling the pill version of Wagov in January, whereas Eli Lily isn't due on the market until March, how do you plan to make the most of this head start.
Thanks very much for having me, Katie. As they said, Christmas comes early, so I'm super excited of course to be here announcing the big OV pill. As you say, this is really going to be super exciting for the millions of patients that have been waiting to get their hands on a GLP one pill. And for the first time, we are having a pill that has an efficacy of some seventeen percent if you take the pill regularly, and one in three people are going to actually reduce up
to twenty percent weight loss. I think that data speaks for itself, and we are super excited of course to be the first to the market, and we're going to go all in trying to make this a huge success.
Well moving forward, I mean beyond just these first few months after Eli Lilly does have their pill on the market, how do you plan to compete? What is your strategy there? Given my understanding is that there's likely going to be no restrictions when it comes to food, when it comes to drinks around Lily's version.
Yeah, So, as I mentioned, there are no other phase three trials of GP one that has shown this level efficacy. This means that for the first time ever, people do not have compromise between either taking an efficacious injection or a convenient pill. For the first time ever, you have the same efficacy of seventeen percent in injection or at pill you can take it on a daily basis as a pill or a weekly injection, and that I think
is the key selling point with WeGo v Pill. We also have more than ten years of of course experience with regards to safety data and what have you. That's why it's called the vigov pill, which means that this pill is not only going to reduce your weight, it also has protection for your cardiovascular systems. So this is a phenomenal pill, second to none, I would say, and we are very ready to compete with it.
Let's talk about how you're going to sell it through. What channels will you sell this way go v Pill and will all of those channels be available at launch?
The quick answer is yes, we're going all in. We're of course going to sell this through our own websites, Novercare Pharmacy, as well as all of our partners be it row, Live, MD, Costco, weight Watchers, everyone that you can imagine is going to start launching this at the same time on the day of the launch. Trump Our X of course will be coming up soon as well as well as, of course the traditional channels that usually medicine is procrued in US.
Well to that point that you know it's going to be widely available. Let's talk about supply. I know that you've already started production. How confident are you that you're going to be able to meet all of that demand at launch, given, of course, the supply challenges that you've been through in the past.
Let me take you back. You know, ten years ago, when we started the journey of putting a peptide into a pill, no one thought scientifically that is possible. You have to remind your audience that pills are usually chemical entities, small molecules, and not proteins and peptides, and often they have lower efficacy because of that. When we decided to actually go this route, everyone thought scientifically, this is impossible.
Then after that, when we prove them wrong, people thought that we cannot scale that because this is quite difficult to do again because it's large molecule inside a pill. Again, we have shown confidence that we are able to scale this more than enough for every single person who would want to take the pill, and we're ready for that. And then of course, lastly, people are writing us off that you know, this would not be possible at an affordable price. And I'm also very happy to say once again,
we are proving all of these skeptics wrong. So I'm super excited that we have something that is borderline miracle in my own humble opinion, a peptide in a pill with a high efficacy, produce at scale, and we're going to actually sell it through all channels at relatively affordable price.
I'm curious how you see this market evolving. Whether you think that, you know, having this pill version available will expand the total addressable market, the total number of patients that you can reach, or whether or not it might cannibalize the injectibles that you're already serving.
You know, in my own family and circle of friends, there are a number of people that have been very attracted in taking a gop one product and reducing weight. Unfortunately that have not you know, taken that journey because they've been either afraid of injections or there's the taboo of injection. I think a lot of these people today will be able to find big ov pill incredibly interesting as a weight again to come in get the same efficacy as your injection, but in a form factor of
a pill. So in short, I think the market will expand quite a bit actually for many of these people that have just been waiting and seeing the injectable versions of these gop one products taking taking the world by storm.
And of course we have to talk about pricing and how that plays into the political picture. Many drug makers, yourself included, have made pricing deals with the Trump administration. And given that those deals have already been made, what additional political hurdles do you see, if any, in twenty twenty six.
Well, again, the whole, the whole negotiation with the Trump's administration has been around providing access at an affordable price. And we have announced that we will start the starting those of the big O V pill at one nine, which I think is a very you know, affordable price
for many Americans to to to get interested at. And and and I will say that as we go forward, of course, we will very much like to continue expanding the market, and we will make sure that the price levels are in a way that that that that that that will make us do that.
And Mike, before I let you go, I have to ask you about m and A. Of course, you had that eye profile bidding war with Pizer over met Sarah. Pfizer ultimately came out on top. But with that in the background, Are you still looking to pursue deals here, deals here to help fill out your pipeline so to speak.
Absolutely, we have made it very clear that we would like to sustain our leadership in diabetes and obesity and go very deep. We have a fantastic pipeline in both of those therapy areas. But the world is very large. We are dealing with some close to two billion people
that are suffering from diabetes, obesity and overweight. And when you're having an ambition to actually capture as many patients as possible from this very large pool, then you will continue looking not just in your own research shop, but everywhere else to see how complimentary wise you could actually have the best pipeline available and the best offering amongst all your competitors.
Well, Mike, I know it is a big day for I really appreciate you taking the time for Bloomberg Television. Happy holidays when you get there. That is Mike Dostar. He is the CEO of Novo Nordisk