Investors are fixated this fall on the threat that new obesity medicines pose to industries from snack foods to diabetes care, medical devices to gambling. Seemingly every couple of days, a Wall Street analyst or cable TV talking head claims the wave of weight loss drugs will the destroy the business model of some new sector.
“It seems like a bit of an overreaction, if you ask me,” says Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, speaking with Barron’s on Thursday shortly after the company reported financial results showing that sales were up 33% at constant exchange rates so far this year, as compared with the first nine months of last year.
Once known mostly as a manufacturer of insulin products, it is now among the most valuable healthcare companies in the world. “It also means that we are left, right, and center in terms of attention, which is completely new for us,” Jørgensen said. “We’re very humble about what we do. And we have a really, really long-term perspective.”
GLP-1 drugs, he says, are not a cure-all, and patients will still need other treatments. “It’s not that if you lose weight, then suddenly you don’t have kidney disease,” he says.“If you have had a talk with a patient who has been on Wegovy, and you have heard how that has changed the individual’s eating habits, there’s no doubt that patients who have been snacking throughout the day, they change behavior significantly,” he says. “And some change to more healthy snacks.