lars: we are only scratching the surface for the number of patients we are treating and it takes time to scale. francine: this is the man in

charge of europe's most valuable company, novo nordisk and its blockbuster diabetes and obesity drug ozempic and wegovy. both contain the key ingredient sum include tight, revolutionizing the weight loss market and generating billions in sales. celebrities have helped their popularity store. sharon osbourne, chelsea handler and elon musk have all publicly talked about taking ozempic or wegovy and have had further backing from oprah winfrey. it's a global phenomenon reaching millions on social media apps, including tiktok. but it's not without controversy, including possible side effects, high prices in the company's lobbying efforts receiving criticism around the world. in some cases, patients might also need to take the drugs indefinitely to avoid regaining the weight. chief executive lars fruergaard jorgensen says obesity is a disease and thinks a company will learn from its growing number of patients.

quex -- lars: my personal view is we are here to learn patience are different and there will be different avenues so we will have to have a portfolio of interventions. francine: i traveled to the headquarters in copenhagen, denmark. i asked him about the global sensation, how he is navigating the company's meteoric rise in the sweeping changes they could bring across a range of industries. thank you so much for being on bloomberg with us. after decades of research, basically novo finds a molecule that changes everything in terms of weight loss drugs. were you taken by surprise at the appetite for these drugs and how mainstream they are? lars: i would say there are many surprises. it starts with surprises in innovation because there are

many shots being made in most fail. the winner is actually the one that surprises people the most. francine: why do you think this surprise or success was unexpected? did you capture something in society that you weren't ready for? quex i think we have seen many decades of our company focus on type one diabetes. because of lifestyle changes there was an increase in type 2 diabetes. for many years type two diabetes was not intensively treated. then there was a steady stare reassured you need to treat type 2 diabetes to prevent comorbidities. and that increase the diabetes market and we see the same with obesity that for years we felt perhaps obesity is not a real disease or something you should treat and that's being established by understanding the underlying causes of obesity.

that does a lot of playing genetics. for now there are innovations that can actually treat the disease, help people reduce the rate. it's ever pee in a way of what happened with type 2 diabetes and suddenly opened some markets that turned out to be bigger than the diabetes market. francine: how difficult is it to have lifelong treatment and how do you see that changing? >> i think we have yet to learn how it could be much different. some will be on lifelong treatment, some will have progressive obesity that will put more and more weight on. and they will be more efficacious medicine. it almost prevents them and they will have a different trajectory. i don't think we have seen much of this. i'm not a scientist myself, but

they say priority and mechanism will tell you the treatment. my personal view is that we will learn that patients are much different and there will be different avenues, so we have to build up a portfolio of interventions in lifestyle will also play into it for some of them. i think we can help many patients get down to a weight that they can maintain and live the life they want to live in of fordham -- avoid many health comorbidities. francine: we heard the big groups are having crisis talks. does this mean there will be a wider adoption of the drugs. does it mean people will eat and drink 30% less? do you see it changing our societies? lars: there will be many changes but with that comes opportunities. there will be a different preference for snacking. we still need to eat. so maybe a bit less of unhealthy

snacking and preference for more of the healthy stuff. so i think it's also about following the trend and moving to where the market is. i think there is an 80-20 perspective. you have a few patients who are heavy consumers. i think there will be a relative bigger impact on some of these companies, but i think it's a bit hyped when we see the reactions we see because we are only scratching the surface and the number of patients we are treating it takes some time to scale manufacturing to get to many more millions of patients. francine: hollywood has adopted your weight loss drugs. is that are a good or bad thing? lars: we have a situation where we have social media -- its complication around our products.

that's completely new for us. we are focused on educating physicians. in most countries we cannot do direct to consumer advertisement. in countries it's important for us to understand which products are approved for type 2 diabetes, which are approved for obesity, what's the mechanism and how should they be used. the good data for insurance companies we could see the profile of those who use our medicines. we could see that, on average with a high pmi well above 30, there is the improved laborers so we feel comfortable that it is people in need of medical intervention to treat serious obesity. francine: but you have become a serious phenomenon. it's all over social media and people say the problem with this is that it could lead to more eating disorders. this is probably because of the increase in social media.

what do pharma companies do, can they do anything to balance this? lars: we have spent some time on understanding what does this mean, what is the breath of it. and we have come to realize we cannot control social media. we tried to be present and get our messaging in. but then all of our messaging is to 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 what it is. i think we have to also trust that the physicians will do what's right for their patients, and in they should for sure not prescribed for people with an eating disorder. francine: coming up, i ask him about criticism the company has faced over its prices, with some analysts predicting the weight loss drug industry could be worth $150 billion a year. ♪

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francine: globally, more than one billion people are thought to be obese. it's a crucial market for weight loss drug makers like novo nordisk, but challenges remain. the patents expire in the eu and spain in the next decade in rival drugs are already emerging, like set bound by eli lilly. i asked the chief executive about regulatory pressures and future growth. how do you think about pricing? you must of gotten some difficult questions from governments, but also it goes back to innovation. lars: most products are priced according to the value they bring, and i feel really good about the value of our medicines, what they bring to the individual patient, but also the value of the health care system. and we have today, health care

systems around the world who were designed for acute care, but finding that the health care system is linked to chronic care. and we have portfolio products that are really addressing some of the chronic diseases of our day and age, diabetes, obesity, and the comorbidities that follow it. we know that there are protections that say, by 2035, the world obesity federation predicts that the cost burden to society would be $4 trillion of the people living with obesity. and that causes going taken up by health care systems that are struggling today by populations. shortage of labor and a lot of workers left the health care system after the pandemic. so, we are tabulating what is the value of the medicine we have, and if you invest in that,

yes, there's a cost up front, maybe we can discuss how we deal with that, but there is tremendous value in terms of preventing cost and keeping people out of the hospital. francine: this is a crucial moment because prices will probably go down as you have more competitors come in. if eli lilly can be a competitor, this is a crucial time are you make investment decisions. when prices are high and you have more cash coming in. is that how you view it? lars: yes, to put a bit more color around it, this same forecast predicts that there will be one billion people living with obesity in 3035. we are serving one of 2 million of those today. so there's a huge market in a place for more. and then you are right that in most markets, when you get more competition, and also over time pricing moves down because you

start treating those who accept the higher price point, in the u.s. its commercial insurance, and then you get broader access and you get your patients paying a lower price. if you just take our leading diabetes product in the u.s. since it launched in 2018, the price we get after we face discount is some 40% lower than will be launched. that's often not mentioned in the political debate, instead, this price is mentioned, which is not what we booked in our account because it's after rebate. francine: the u.s. is such a large market, would you do a list or rebate to the u.s.? lars: that's unlikely. we are controlled by a foundation anchored in denmark. we have a lot of footprint in denmark. having said that, we do invest

and expand a lot globally, most of what we sell in the u.s. we also produce in the u.s.. we are as much a u.s. company as a danish company. the corporate headquarter is based in denmark for the foreseeable future. francine: you think of denmark and you think of novo because of the size of revenues, which is, i think bigger than gdp, is that uncomfortable? lars: i think may be the perspective should be corrected a bit because this comparison about market cap would danish gdp and we all know that gdp is an economic flow matrix for the flow on a yearly basis. in market cap is the total value of the company. i'm sure if we compare the market cap with novo to everything in denmark, it would be tiny. but of course, there's also the point that our expansions, our more than 30,000 employees in denmark, huge capex investment, we are fueling the gdp growth.

and, you know we take that quite seriously. the jobs we create, i don't think will disappear again. and, now we talk about expanding in the u.s.. it doesn't come in the shape or form of moving activities. it's each growth in the u.s.. we would be careful and respectful in how we grow. so we could do that in a sustainable way. francine: that's also increasing supply with new factories. lars: yes, we have made huge investment decisions, and these are billion-dollar commitments per year and it takes four to five years to build some of these facilities only started, so we have more and more lines kicking and in an ongoing basis. francine: are you also looking

for acquisitions? lars: yes, we are. we are in the phase that most of the products came from our 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. so typically it would be early stage where they have great science, we have disease, understanding on the infrastructure, so we can express that in a better way than we could do on our own. some of the parts are bigger than what each can do on their own. francine: there seems to be an explosion of not trusting pharmaceutical companies and vaccines. have you felt any backlash?

lars: yes, for me it's a sad situation to be in because had it not been for the small banks that came out with vaccines, and then teaming up with the largest forces of our industry to in record time get approving, i think the world would look much different today. and i respect that some do not like vaccines, but the majority of us have a number of shots and that led to a lot of debate about the patents really needed, unless we have the ability to patent innovation, there will be innovation, so there will be no new products. something about how we distribute products and honestly, a lot of the rich countries ended up grabbing

products for their own publishing at the expense of developing countries who did not get access. that leads to a debate of whether ip's are the right way to go. that to me is the wrong discussion. we have to figure out how to show we acknowledge that the whole world has to benefit in a fair way. if we take it away. -- fencing coming up, he tells me about the leadership style at the helm of their most valuable company. ♪

francine: over philanthropic foundation is more than double the assets of the gates foundation. i asked how he handled the company's success in his success to corporate culture. are you enjoying success or with it as it also bring a lot of responsibility? lars: it's at a time where it had just been cut by 40%. we were in no growth, single-digit growth. and it's much harder to invest in the business, do the things you want to do compared to everything up to date. i enjoy that, but obviously it also comes with many challenges

about how to sustain the success of the company. francine: what kind of leader which her employees say you are? lars: you should ask them. i hope they would say that i am authentic, i'm relatively easy to read. i would also hope they say that i am curious because i am not a specialist in anything, but i have found that that has not been a problem in the company we couldn't solve if we mobilized the right people. i'm born with a big nose and big ears, and they use the attributes of that to collect opinions from the company. and then it's my role to combine it into an opinion, together with my team, and make sure that we make the right choice. francine: does a perfect leader

in 2023 need to be a visionary or a problem solver? lars: i would say, if i have to solve the problems, it's a problem. because, for example, when covid-19 arrived, we decided to close down the offices. we kept manufacturing in the bottles running, and we all went home. and what you do, you need to establish a crisis response team to deal with that. so the first decision i made was i should not be part of that. i was a bit out of the loop for a couple of days. i knew if i put myself into that, i would become the bottleneck in the company, and the company will suddenly have lost its ceo. so i asked our cfo to chair that. then i could still be there for everybody, and people could come to me and check in, and i could try to get a view for what are

the other companies doing, what's happening, and give some input. so, if this co 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 -- to being the leader of the team. and i think they would tell me today that they would have liked me to a bit quicker act like the boss, but for me it was not natural to say be bossy after one night. i think i have been growing into the role, and i feel more comfortable today. actually listening to my gut, which is a combination of your own feelings, but also your experiences, and earlier, say

what i believe in, and that creates clarity for an organization of one of 60,000 people. francine: saturday mornings i understand you have off. lars: saturdays is always a day i powered down, so i wanted a relative high pace throughout the week, try to wrap things up, and saturday is a quiet day for me, in terms of work, and i start activity by playing tennis with my wife, we go for a swim all year round after that. have a nice lunch. then i'm on to a good trajectory for the weekend. and then sunday, i try to prepare for the coming weeks. but through the weekend i would send either no emails or very few emails because i want to drive a culture where they all get an opportunity to spend the weekend as they fancy. i think what we do it so difficult and it takes so much

creative thinking to succeed, that if you are always on, always busy, the band width of your reflection is just too narrow. and i generally believe that monday mornings, i am a better leader than im say, friday afternoon. i want to take all my vacations. i generally believe i'm a better ceo after vacation. francine: what's your best piece of advice you've ever received on your worst piece of advice you've ever received? lars: the best advice would probably be, give people a fair chance to succeed, and most can actually do much better than they believe themselves. perhaps also you believe based on short-term performance. so, trust people, and give them what is needed for them to succeed. you will see people succeeding.

the worst piece would be something that was influenced by, say politics or spinning facts. i am hyper allergic to politics and trying to take advantage of a position. i've 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, then we met with our shared boss and my colleague turned it around. i said, ok, integrity is so holy for me, that if people play tricks, it's not my game whatsoever. so, i just said, this is it, i'm out of here. but i still stayed. but, any advice that is not based on honesty, decency and

following the facts, i have a really hard time. francine: thank you so much for your time. ♪

tinashe: maybe i will never be able to compete in the same spaces and