---

Best Big Pharma & Big “Talking Point”

Headquarters: Bagsværd, Denmark

There’s an interesting story of competition in the history of Novo Nordisk. In 1923, Nordisk Insulinlabororium began commercializing insulin. In 1925, former Nordisk employees established their own company: Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium. Both spent the next several decades competing in the diabetes field, until they merged in 1989 to form Novo Nordisk A/S.

It was hardly a surprise to see so many votes for Novo Nordisk. At industry trade shows and events, everyone is talking about this company and its semaglutide products: Ozempic and Wegovy. Some analysts have predicted that Wegovy could become one of the best selling drugs ever because of the huge demand for weight management solutions. With Novo Nordisk struggling to manufacture high enough product quantities, its parent company, Novo Holdings, launched an unexpected acquisition of CDMO Catalent for $16.5 billion in 2024. Three of Catalent’s fill-finish sites were then sold to Novo Nordisk. 

Novo Nodisk is also investing in capacity for other drug areas. In mid-December, it announced an investment of 8.5 billion Danish kroner (approximately $1.18 billion) to create a brand new modular production facility in Odense, Denmark, that will span over 40,000 m2. However, it’s not all smooth sailing. Recently, the company announced results from a phase III trial of CagriSema (a fixed dose combination of cagrilintide and semaglutide). Trial participants lost around 22.7 percent of their body weight, but share prices in Novo Nordisk dropped – because many in the market had been expecting a weight loss benchmark of 25 percent. 

Honorable mention: Pfizer

For the full list of winners, click here.