Novo Nordisk (Ozempic): The Complete History and Strategy
Last year Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, overtook LVMH to become Europe’s most valuable company. And the pull for Acquired to finally tackle healthcare (18% of US GDP!) became too strong for us to resist. While we didn’t know much about Novo Nordisk before diving in, our first thought was, “wow, seems like these new diabetes and obesity drugs mean serious trouble for big insulin companies.” And then… we realized that Novo Nordisk IS the big insulin company. And in a story befitting of Steve Jobs and Apple, they’d just disrupted themselves with the drug equivalent of an iPhone moment. Once we dug further, we quickly realized this company has it all: an incredible 100+ year history filled with Nobel Prizes, bitter personal rivalries, board room dramas, a generation-defining silicon valley innovation, lone voices persevering against all odds — and oh yeah, the world’s largest charitable foundation at its helm. Tune in for one incredible story!
Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) | Acquired so Cloudflare URLs win cascade before parses and triggers font fetches --> back transcript • Season 14 | episode 1 Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) Ben: All right, first episode back. Let's see if I can do this sleep deprived. David: You and me both, man. Ben: Welcome to season 14, episode 1 of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. David: I'm David Rosenthal. Ben: We are your hosts. Today's episode is on the company behind these sensational Diabetes and weight loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. The company i
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