>> we are only scratching the surface of patients we are treating and it takes time to scale to many more millions of pieces. francine: this is the man of --

in charge of novo nordisk and its blockbuster diabetes and obesity drugs, ozempic and wego v. both contain the key ingredient semi-glue tide, revolutionizing the weight loss market and generating billions in sales. celebrities have helped their popularity soared. sharon osbourne, chelsea handler and elon musk have all talked about publicly taking ozempic or wego v. 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 on the company's lobbying for seen criticism around the world. in some cases patients might need to take the drugs indefinitely to avoid regaining the weight. the chief executive says obesity is a disease and think the company will learn from its growing number of patients.

>> my personal view is that we will also feel that taste -- patients are -- much different and will be different. so there will have to be a portfolio of inventions. francine: i travel to the firm's headquarters in copenhagen, denmark. i asked lars about the global sensation, how he's 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. lars: thank you for having me. francine: after decades of research you find a molecule that changes everything in terms of weight loss drugs. review taken by surprise at the appetite for these drugs and how mainstream they are? lars: i would say there are many surprises when you get a product like that. it starts with surprises in the innovation because there are

many shots being made on goal and now sales in the winter is often the one that surprises people the most. francine: why do you think the surprise wasn't expected? did it capture something in society you weren't ready for? lars: i think we have seen many decades of our company was focused on type one diabetes, them because of lifestyle changes, perhaps genetics, there was an increase in type 2 diabetes. type 2 diabetes was not intensively treated them there was the reassurance they need to treat type 2 diabetes to prevent comorbidities. in that increased the diabetes mark, now we are seeing the same with obesity that for years we felt that perhaps obesity is not a real disease, not something you should treat but it's being established that by understanding the underlying causes of obesity, that there is

a lot of play, for instance in genetics. but now, innovations that can actually treat the disease, help people reduce weight and prevent the comorbidities. so i think it's a repeat and what happened with type 2 diabetes, and that then suddenly opens the market that tends to be way bigger than the diabetes market. francine: how different is it, how do you see it changing? lars: i think we have yet to learn how patient journeys will be different. some will be on lifelong treatment. some will have progressive obesity that will put more weight on and they will need more medicine. but perhaps there also be some that have been on treatment for some time, almost prevents them, and they will have a different trajectory. i don't think we have seen much of this yet. when i asked the scientist, i'm

not a scientist myself, they say priority and mechanism will tell you it's treatment. my personal view is that we will learn that patients are much different and there will be different avenues, so we will have to build a portfolio of interventions, lifestyle will play into it for some of them, and i think we can help many patients get down to a weight that they can maintain and live the life that they want to live and avoid many comorbidities. francine: we also heard from food companies that the chief executives of big groups are having crisis talks. does this mean there will be a wider adoption of these drugs, doesn't mean people will eat and drink 30% less? do you see it really changing our societies? lars: i think there will be changes but with that comes opportunities. there will be a different preference for snacking. i think we still need to eat, so maybe perhaps a bit less of the

unhealthy snacking and a preference for more of the healthy stuff. so i think for companies it's about following the trend based on business and moving towards where the market is. i think that it is probably an 80/20 perspective here like in many other sectors that you have a few patients who are heavy consumers. and then those start of treatment and there will be a relative impact on the companies. in general, i think it's a bit hyped when we see the reactions because we are only scratching the surface and the number of patients we are treating and 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 a good or a bad thing? lars: we have a situation where social media is filled with communication around our products and that's completely

new for us. we are focused on educating physicians. in most countries we cannot do direct to consumer advertisement. in all countries it's really important for us to see which products are improved for type 2 diabetes, which are approved for diabetes, what's a mechanism and how should they be used. when we see the data for 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 bmi, well above 30, so there is the approved label, so we feel comfortable about that it is people in need of medical intervention to treat serious obesity and situations. francine: you have become such a phenomenon and there are memes all over social media and some say the problem with this is that it could actually lead to more eating disorders. this is probably because of the increase of social media.

what do pharma companies do, can they do anything to balance this? lars: i think 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 try to be present and get our messaging in. all of our medicines take physician writing a script. so we really 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 do what is right for their patient and they should for sure not prescribed to people living with eating disorders. francine: coming up, ask lars about criticism the company has faced over its prices, with some analysts predicting their weight loss drug industry could be worth $115 billion a year.

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francine: globally more than one billion people are thought to be obese. but challenges remain. the company's patents expire in the u.s. and the eu at the end of the next decade in rival drugs are already emerging like set down by eli lilly. i asked the chief executive about regulatory pressures and future growth. so how do you think about pricing? you must of gotten difficult questions from governments, but also this goes back to innovation. 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 a patient, but also the value to the health care system. and we have health care systems

around the world who were typically deciding for acute care but finding that 80% of the cost on 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 we know there are protections that say by 2035, the world obesity federation predicts that the cost burden to society would be $4 trillion of people living with obesity. and that cost is going to be taken up by health care systems who are already struggling today by aging populations. shortage of labor. and not enough workers left to health care systems during the pandemic or after the pandemic. so we are seeing what is the value of the medicine we have.

if you invest in that, there is a cost upfront. maybe we can discuss how we deal with that, but there is tremendous value in terms of preventing costs and keeping people out of the hospital. francine: this is a crucial moment because price will probably go down as you have more competitors come in. we know eli lilly can be a competitor, so this is a crucial time we have to make investment decisions when you're priced so high and you're having more cash coming in. is that how you are viewing it? lars: yes, to put a bit more color around it, the same forecast predicts that there will be one billion people living with obesity in 2035. we are serving one or 2 million of those today. so there is a huge market and there is 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. over time you get broader access and you get patients paying a lower price. you just take our leading diabetes product in the u.s. since launch. in 2018, the price we get after we base discounts etc. is some 40% lower than when we launched. that's often not mentioned in the political debate. instead, the list price is mentioned. which is what we book in our account after the rebates. francine: the u.s. is a large market. do list or change or add quarters? lars: that's unlikely. we are controlled by a foundation that is anchored. 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. in many aspects, we are as much a u.s. company as -- company. the corporate headquarters is based for the foreseeable future. francine: you think of denmark and then you think of novo because of the size of revenues, which is bigger. is that uncomfortable? lars: i think may be their perspective should be corrected a bit because there is comparison about the market cap with the danish gdp. we are know if gdp is an economic flow metrics for the flow and the market cap is the total value of the company. i'm sure if we compared the market cap of novo nordisk with everything in denmark, we would be tiny. but there is also the point of will our expansions, our more than 30,000 in denmark huge capex investment, we are fueling the gdp growth and you know we

take that quite seriously. so the jobs that we create, i don't think will disappear again and now we talk about expanding in the u.s. it doesn't come from moving. it's 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 within the factories. lars: we have made huge investment decisions and these are billion dollar commitments per year and it takes four, five years to build some of these facilities and we started already, u.s. bank. so we have more and more lines kicking in on an ongoing basis. but some of them will be kicking in the future.

francine: are you also looking for acquisitions? lars: we are. most of the products we have came from our in-house, which is a bit unusual compared to our peers. we expect to carry on with that but we can also see that we can complement that. specifically it would be early-stage where they have great signs, we have understanding, we have the infrastructure. we can express that science in a better way than they could do on their own. so it makes a perfect marriage and some of the parts are bigger than what each can do on their own. francine: but our firm -- pharma companies have a harder time after covid? there seems to be an explosion of not trusting pharmaceutical companies, even vaccines being questioned. have you felt any backlash? >> yes, and for me, that is a

really sad situation to be in because had it not been for some of the very innovative small biotech sue came out with vaccines, and then teaming up with some of the largest forces of our industry to, in record time, get approval in scaling and manufacturing, i think the world would've looked much different today. i respect that some do not like vaccines, but the majority of us has had a number of shaun's. that led to another debate about our patents really needed. on this we have an to patent innovation that's not going to be an innovation, so there will be no new products. there's something about equality, how we distribute products. honestly, i think a lot of the rich countries ended up grabbing

products for their own at the expense of some of the developing countries who did not get access and that leads to a debate of whether ip's are the right way to go. but that to me is and under -- how can we show we have technology that the whole world can benefit. but if you take it away from innovation it -- francine: coming up, lars tells me about his leadership style at the helm of europe's most valuable company. ♪

francine: the market value of novo notices bigger than the danish economy and the philanthropic is bigger than the world with more than double the assets of the gates foundation. i asked lars how he handles a company's success in his approach to corporate culture. francine: are you enjoying success with it does it also bring a lot of responsibility? lars: it's at a time where it was cut by 40%. we were in no growth, no single digit growth, and it's much harder to invest in the business, do things you want to do compared to what the opportunities are today. so, i enjoy that, but obviously it also comes with many challenges about how to sustain

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

francine: does the perfect leader in 2024 need to be a visionary or problem solver? lars: i would say if i have to solve the problems, it's a problem. an example, when covid-19 arrived, we decided to close down the offices and we kept manufacturing in laboratories 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 it was i should not be part of it. i was a bit out of the loop for a couple of days, but i knew if i put myself into that, i would become the bottleneck in the company and the company would have suddenly lost its ceo. so i asked our cfo to chair that. and 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 other companies doing, what's happening, and give some input. so if the ceo turns into the problem solver of the company, i think the company needs another seo. francine: have you changed as the ceo? lars: i believe i have. when i was promoted, i took a step up in the team, so i went from being a colleague to being a 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 be bossy after one night. so, i think i have been growing into the role that i feel more comfortable today and actually listening to my gut, which is a combination of your own feelings, but also your experiences.

in earlier, say what i believe in and that creates clarity for an organization with more than 60,000 people. francine: saturday mornings i understand you have off. lars: saturday is always a day where i powered down. so i run at a relative high pace throughout the week. i try to wrap things up, and saturday is a quiet day for me in terms of work. i started activity by playing tennis with my wife. we go for a swim all year round. after that i have a nice lunch, and that i'm on to a good trajectory for the weekend. and then sunday, i tried to prepare for the coming weeks, but through a weekend i would send either no emails are very few emails because i want to drive a culture where all gets 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 bandwidth of your reflection is just too narrow. and i genuinely believe that monday mornings, i'm a better leader than i am friday afternoon. i also take all my vacations i'm a better ceo right after vacation. francine: what's your best piece of advice you've ever received and what's the worst piece of advice you've ever received? lars: the best advice would probably be give people at 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 we try to take advantage of a position. so, i've had one experience during my career where i gave my resignation because somebody, a close colleagues -- close colleague completely twisted some facts that we had just agreed how to approach. we met with him and my colleague just turned it around. is it ok, integrity. so if people play tricks, it's not making whatever. i just said, ok, this is it, i'm out of here. but we sorted it out, i still stayed. so any advice that is not based

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

jason: paul ray ball is the a-rod of la crosse well. you talk to anyone in the l