00:00Novo Nordisk U.S. listed shares jumping in late trading after it secured FDA approval for a pill
00:04version of his weight loss jab, WeGovie. The pill is expected to launch in the U.S. in January.
00:10Let's get more from Bloomberg's pharma reporter, Amber Tong. Amber, walk us through the significance
00:14of this. We've had, of course, the injection for quite some time. Why is a pill so important?
00:20Yeah, Oliver, this is really something that many people have been waiting for for a long time.
00:25As you said, WeGovie and Novo Nordisk diabetes drug, Ozempic, these are huge. They both contain
00:33the same active ingredient, semaglutide, and they belong to this blockbuster GLP-1 class that
00:38has become really multi-billion dollar drugs. And Novo Nordisk also has a pill form of semaglutide
00:46that's already approved for diabetes. But this new approval really completes the quartet. This is
00:51the first of its kind approval for an oral GLP-1 pill that's approved for weight loss. And while
00:59the injectables have been hugely successful, there has been a lot of talk that an oral pill
01:04would provide a much more convenient option for patients. There are people who may be afraid
01:08of needles and they don't want to get injections. They would prefer to take a pill once a day
01:13instead to meet their weight management needs. And a pill form of the obesity drug is also much
01:21easier to transport and store because it doesn't require refrigerators, unlike the injectables.
01:26So this is really a crucial win for Novo Nordisk as it takes on Eli Lilly, its chief rival.
01:33Yeah, and a Novo Nordisk that seems increasingly in need of a major win. Shares are down about 53%
01:39this year from the higher point a little bit earlier in February. Put this in a larger
01:43context for Novo Nordisk and whether or not this will turn its fortunes around.
01:49Sure. Yeah. This, as we see, it seems like investors are quite excited about it, judging from
01:55the after markets trading. And this approval certainly provides a near-term, much-needed boost,
02:02potential growth driver. But the execution of this commercial rollout of the obesity pill will be
02:09really critical. Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk chief rival, also has an obesity pill in the works.
02:17And the company has said that it anticipates an approval as early as March. So Novo Nordisk really
02:23only has a few months of head start to kind of establish this market and to take lead in this
02:30really critical oral market. And on the other hand, Novo has also really been under pressure on a lot
02:37of fronts, not just from Eli Lilly. It's battling the compounding pharmacies that are selling kind
02:43of legally gray area obesity drugs in the U.S. And there's a crop of newly emerging companies and
02:52whether it's startups or big pharma, that's also eyeing this huge obesity market. So there's still a lot
02:59for Novo Nordisk executives to prove.
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