The slimming giant takes over Denmark

Published 31 July 2024 at 10.43

Economy. The company Novo Nordisk, which is behind the highly successful new slimming drug Ozempic, already dominates the Danish economy – which is believed to lead to problems in the long term.

Share the article

TwittraShare

Global sales of Ozempic have increased by over 60 percent in the past year alone.

In the United States, which is one of the drug's largest markets, prescriptions for Ozempic and similar drugs quadrupled between 2020 and 2022.

Despite the large sales, demand is so high that there has been a persistent shortage of Ozempic in the US for much of the past few years.

The company behind Ozempic, Denmark's Novo Nordisk, is now reaping the rewards of these successes – as is the Danish economy at large.

Novo's net profit more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, and the stock has soared. At the end of 2023, Novo became the largest company in Europe.

Almost 1 in 5 Danish jobs created last year was at Novo, writes NPR. If you also include the jobs that Novo has created indirectly – for example through its suppliers or from all the nouveau riche Novo employees spending their money in shops and restaurants – almost half of all non-agricultural private jobs created in Denmark can be traced back to Novo .

Denmark's gross domestic product would actually have shrunk last year if it weren't for the pharmaceutical sector's contribution.

“In other words, the company has almost single-handedly saved the country from a recession,” writes American NPR, which, however, also addresses the downsides of the successes.

“Novo Nordisk's meteoric rise raises questions about economic growth that are much bigger than just Denmark: What are the risks of having a giant company that runs one's entire economy ?And more importantly, what if the company's success reverses?” writes NPR in an analysis.