francine: this is the man in charge of europe's most valuable company, novo nordisk, and its diabetes drugs, containing an ingredient revolutionizing the weight loss market and generating billions in sales. celebrities have helped their popularity sore. sharon osbourne and elon musk have talked about taking it and have had further backing from oprah winfrey. it's a global phenomenon, reaching millions on social media apps including tiktok, but it is not without controversy, including possible side effects, high prices, and the company's lobbying efforts receiving criticism around the world and in some cases, patients might also need to take the drugs and definitely avoid regaining weight. the chief executive says obesity -- chief executive lars fruergaard jorgensen thinks obesity is an epidemic and thinks the company will learn from its patients. >> my personal view is that

patients are much different and there will be different avenues, so we will have to have a portfolio of interventions. francine: i travel to the firm's headquarters in copenhagen, denmark, and ask about the global sensation and how he is navigating the company's meteoric rise and the sweeping changes they could bring across a range of industries. thank you so much for being on "bloomberg -- bnn bloomberg with us. lars: thanks for having me. francine: were you taken by surprise at the appetite for these drugs and how mainstream they are? >> i would actually say there are many surprises with a product like that. there are many shots being made on goal, and the winner is often the one that surprises people the most. francine: why do you think this surprise or success was unexpected? did it capture something in society that you were not before? lars: i think we have seen

first, many decades of our company was focused on type one diabetes, and then perhaps -- and then because of lifestyle changes, there was an increase in type two diabetes. data showed you read -- really need to treat type 2 diabetes to prevent comorbidities. that increased the market a lot. now we are seeing the same with obesity, but for years, we felt perhaps this is not a real disease, not something you should treat, but that is being tempered by the understanding that there's a lot of play in genetics and also ways to treat the disease, help people reduce weight, and prevent comorbidities. i think it's a repeat in a way of what happened with type two

diabetes, and it suddenly opens the market. francine: how difficult is it to have a lifelong treatment, and how do you see that changing? >> i think we are yet to learn how it will be different. some will be on lifelong treatment. some will have progressive obesity that will keep you putting more weight on and there will need to be more efficacious medicine. others who will have a different trajectory. i don't think we have seen much

of this yet. when i ask the scientists -- i'm not a scientist myself, they say the priority and mechanism will tell you the treatment. my feeling is we will learn patience are much different and there will be different avenues, so we will have to build a portfolio of interventions. lifestyle will also play into it for some of them, and i think we can help many patients get down to a weight that they can maintain. francine: we also heard from companies that the executives of some of the big groups are having crisis talks, and does this mean there will be a wider adoption of these drugs? does it mean people are going to eat and drink 30% less? do you see it really changing our societies? >> i think there will be many changes, but i think with that also comes opportunities.

there will perhaps be a preference for snacking, so they will still need to eat. maybe perhaps a bit less of snacking and a preference for the healthy stuff. i think it is also about following the trend and moving toward where the market is. i think there is probably an 80/20 perspective here, like in many other sectors, that you will have a few patients who are heavy consumers, and if they start of treatment, i think they will be bigger on some of these companies, but also in general, i think it is a bit hyped because we are only scratching the surface in the number patients we are treating and it takes time to scale to get to many more millions of patients. francine: hollywood has also adopted your weight loss drugs. is that a good or bad thing? lars: we don't have the tradition where social media communicates on our products, and that is completely new for us.

we are focused on educating physicians in those countries we cannot do direct to consumer advertisement. conscience is important for us. we want to understand which product are approved for type 2 diabetes. when we see the data from insurance companies, we can see the profile of those who use our medicines. we can see that they are on average people with very high pmi, well above 30. we feel comfortable about -- that it is people in need of intervention to treat serious obesity. francine: but you have become such a phenomenon. it is all over social media, and some are saying the problem with this is it could lead to more eating disorders, and this is probably because of the increase in social media. what do pharma companies do?

can they do anything to kind of balance this? >> i think we have to spend some time on understanding what this means, and we have come to realize we cannot control social media. we try to be present and get our messaging in, but all our medicines take a physician writing a script, so we focus on the physician to make sure they understand what are the mechanisms, who are the appropriate patients, and then i think we have to also trust that the physicians will do what is right for their patient, and they should for sure not prescribe for people living with an eating disorder. francine: coming up, i asked lars fruergaard jorgensen about criticism the company has faced over prices with some analysts predicting the weight loss drug industry could be worth $150 billion a year. ♪

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end clogged gutters for good. call 833.leaf.filter, or visit leaffilter.com today. francine: globally, more than one billion people are thought to be obese. it's a crucial market for weight loss drug makers, but challenges remain. the company's patents expire in the u.s. and eu at the end of the next decade, and rival drugs are already emerging. i asked chief executive lars fruergaard jorgensen about regulatory pressures and future growth. how do you think about pricing? you must have had some difficult questions from government, but also, this goes back to inflation. lars: most products are priced according to the value they bring.

i feel really good about the value of our medicines, what they bring to the patient, but also the value to the health care system. we have today health care systems around the world who were typically designed for acute care, finding that cost in the health care system is linked to chronic care, and we have portfolio products that are addressing some of the chronic diseases of our day and age. diabetes, obesity, and comorbidity is what we know with there are protections that say but 2025, the world obesity organization predicts that across society will be $4 trillion of people living with

obesity, and that cost is going to turn out to be taken up by health care systems who are already struggling today by aging populations and a shortage of labor. a lot of workers left the health care systems during or after the pandemic, so what is the actual value of the medicine we have? if you invest, yes, there is a cost upfront. maybe we can discuss how we deal with that, but there is a tremendous value in terms of preventing cost and keeping people out of hospital. francine: this is a crucial moment because pricing will probably go down as you have more competitors coming in. for eli lilly, engine could be a competitor. this is a crucial time when you have to make investment decisions, when prices are high and you have more cash coming in. is that how you view it? >> yes -- lars: yes. to put a bit of color around it, the same forecast predicts they will be one billion people living with obesity in 2030, 2035. we are perhaps serving one million or 2 million of those. in those markets you get more competition and also over time, pricing moves down because you start treating those who accept

a higher price point, the u.s. does commercial insurance, and you get more access and you get patients paying a lower price, so if you just take our leading diabetes product in the u.s. since launch in 2018, the price we get after rebates, discounts, etc. is some 40% lower than when we launched. the list price is mentioned in the political debate, which is not actually what we booked in our account. francine: the u.s. is such a large market. would you ever delist or change orders to the u.s.? lars: that is unlikely. we are controlled by a foundation. we have a lot of, say, footprint in denmark. having said that, we do invest

and expand a lot globally. most of what we sell in the u.s., so in many aspects, we are a u.s. company is much as a danish company. corporate headquarters is based in denmark. francine: you think of denmark, and really now, you think of novo because of the size of revenues, which is i think bigger than gdp. is that uncomfortable? lars: i think the perspective should be corrected a bit. we all know that gdp is an economic flow matrix, and the

market cap is the total value of the commonwealth. of course, there's also the point that our expansions, more than $30,000 per year in denmark. huge. we are fueling gdp growth, and we take that quite seriously, so the jobs we create i don't think will disappear again. now we talked about expanding in the u.s. it does not come in the shape or form of moving activities from denmark to the u.s. it is growth in the u.s. we will be careful and respectful in how we grow so we can do that in a sustainable way. francine: that means also increasing supply with new factories? lars: yeah, we have made huge investment decisions, and these are billion-dollar commitments per year. it takes four or five years to build some of these facilities. we have more and more lines kicking in on an ongoing basis, but some will also be kicking in in the future.

francine: are you also looking for acquisitions? lars: yes, we are. we are in the unique situation that most of the products we have came from in house, which is a bit unusual compared to some of our peers. we expect to carry on with that, but we can also see that we can complement that with some acquisitions. typically, it will be early stage where they have great science. we have disease understanding and infrastructure, so we can express that science in a better way than they can do on their own, so merging makes a perfect marriage, and the some of the parts is bigger than what it can do on their own. francine: are pharma companies having a hard time after covid? there seems to be a surge in not trusting pharmaceutical companies. even vaccines are being questioned.

have you felt backlash? lars: yes, and to me, that is a sad situation to be in because had it not been for some of the very innovative pharmacists who came up with vaccines and teaming up with some of the largest forces in our industry to in record time get approval in scaling manufacturing, i think the world would look much different than today. i respect there are some who do not like vaccines, but the majority of us has a number of shots, and that led to a lot of debate about patents -- if patents are really needed. we have an ability to patent innovation, but there's not going to be innovation, so there will be no new products. i think there is something about equality, how we distribute products, and honestly, i think a lot of rich countries the ending up grabbing products for their own publicity at the expense of some of the developing countries, which not get access, and that leads to

debate over if ip is the right way to go. that, to me, is the wrong discussion. we have to figure out how we can show solidarity in a way where we can show the whole world benefit. francine: coming up, lars fruergaard jorgensen tells me about his leadership style at the helm of europe's most valuable company. ♪

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oh, that's so rock roll. it is, right. he gets it. yeah. francine: the market value of novo nordisk is bigger than the danish economy and its philanthropic foundation is now the world's largest with more than double the assets of the gates foundation. i asked lars fruergaard jorgensen how he handles the company's success and his approach to corporate culture. are you enjoying success, or with it doesn't also bring a lot of responsibility? lars: at a time when the share price had just been cut by 30% or 40%, we were in no growth, and it is much harder to invest in the business, do things you want to do, compared to what opportunities are today, so i enjoy that, but obviously, it

also comes with many challenges. francine: what kind of leader are you or what kind of leader would your employees say you are? lars: you should ask them. i hope they would say that i'm authentic and easy to read. i would also hope they say that i'm curious because i'm not a specialist in anything, but i have found that there has not been yet a problem in the company we could not solve if we actually mobilized. i'm born with a big nose and big ears, and i use the attribute of that each and every day to collect opinions from the company, and then it is my role

to combine it into an opinion together with my team and make sure that we make the right choice. francine: does the perfect leader in wendy 24 need to be a visionary or a problem solver? lars: i would say if i have to solve the problems, it's a problem. when covid-19 arrived, we decided to close down the office as we kept manufacturing in and we all went home. you need to establish a crisis response team to deal with that. the first decision i made was i should not be part of that. francine: why? lars: i knew if i put myself into that, i would become a bottleneck in the company, and the company will have lost its ceo. i asked our cfo to chair that, and then i could still be there for everybody, and people would

come to me and check in, and i would try to get a view for what are other companies doing, what is happening? and give some input. if the ceo turns into the problem solver of the company, i think the company needs another ceo. francine: have you changed as a ceo? lars: i believe i have. when i was promoted, i took a step up in the team, so i went from colleague to being the leader of the team, and i think they would tell me today that they would have liked me maybe to a bit quicker act like the boss, but for me, it was not natural to just be bossy after one night. i thing i have been growing into the role. i feel more comfortable today actually listening to my guts,

which is a combination of your own feelings but also your experiences, and earlier say what i believe in. francine: saturday mornings, i understand you have off. lars: yeah. saturday is always a day where i power down. i run at a relative high pace throughout the week, try to wrap things up, and saturday is a quiet day for me in terms of work. i start typically by playing tennis with my wife. go for a swim all year-round. after that, have a nice lunch, and then i want a good trajectory for the weekend. sunday, i try to prepare for the coming weeks, but group -- through a weekend, i will send either no emails or very few emails because i want to drive a culture where all get an opportunity to spend the weekend as they fancy. i think what we do is so

difficult, and it takes so much creative thinking to succeed that if you are always on, always busy, the band with -- bandwidth of your reflection is just too narrow. i believe on monday mornings i'm a better leader than i am, say, friday afternoon. i believe i am much better still right after a vacation. francine: what is the best piece of advice you have ever received and the worst piece of advice you have ever received? lars: the best advice would probably be give people a fair chance to succeed, and those can actually do much better than they believe themselves and also you believe based on short-term performance, so trust people and give them what is needed to succeed. the worst piece would be something that was influenced by, say, politics.

i'm hyper alert to politics and when you try to take advantage of a position. i have had one experience during my career where i gave my resignation because somebody, a close colleague, completely twisted some facts. we had just agreed how to approach our boss, and my colleague just turned it around. i said ok. integrity is so holy for me that if people play tricks -- it's not my game.

i said ok, i'm out of here. but i still stayed. any advice that is not based on honesty and decency and following the facts i really have a hard time with. francine: thank you so much for your time today. ♪

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