{"id":34346,"date":"2023-05-05T13:37:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T13:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/flying-high-on-obesity\/"},"modified":"2023-05-05T13:38:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T13:38:09","slug":"flying-high-on-obesity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/flying-high-on-obesity\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying high on obesity success, Novo’s appetite for deals grows"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Natalie Grover<\/p>\n

LONDON (Reuters) – Buoyed by the success of its diabetes and obesity drugs, Novo Nordisk is on the prowl for partnerships and deals to beef up its pipeline, a senior company executive said on Thursday. <\/p>\n

John McDonald, corporate vice president of global R&D business development, said the Danish drugmaker aims to shed its image of being a company that tends to “window shop”, but hardly ever presses the trigger on deals.<\/p>\n

Its interest is largely in areas it has already invested in, including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and gene therapies, he said on a panel at the LSX World Congress conference.<\/p>\n

Since launching its popular Wegovy weight-loss drug in the United States in June 2021, Novo’s shares have soared by 140%.<\/p>\n

It overtook Nestle in March to become Europe’s second-most valuable listed company worth almost 340 billion euro ($374.5 billion) after LVMH.<\/p>\n

The company has traditionally taken a wait-and-see approach to deals, often waiting for drugs to have success in later-stage trials before going for a deal.<\/p>\n

“We’re not doing that anymore,” McDonald said. “Instead of waiting and asking for data and trying to see more and more and more, we’ll go earlier.” <\/p>\n

For instance, the company might in future bet on five early-stage studies, rather than one-mid-stage one, he added.<\/p>\n

Since joining the drugmaker in 2018, the company has grown its business development capacity.<\/p>\n

“If you look at some of our competitors, there are hundreds of people in business development … and we probably have 25,” he said. <\/p>\n

“We’re growing, but … we’re at the capacity where we can meet the needs and desires of what we see on the horizon today.” <\/p>\n

In recent years, the company has bought blood disorders-focused Forma Therapeutics for $1.1 billion, diabetes firm Emisphere Technologies for $1.8 billion and cardiovascular disease specialist Corvidia Therapeutics for $725 million. <\/p>\n

($1 = 0.9078 euros)<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Natalie Grover in London; Edited by Josephine Mason and Christina Fincher)<\/p>\n

\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ430LX-VIEWIMAGE\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Natalie Grover LONDON (Reuters) – Buoyed by the success of its diabetes and obesity drugs, Novo Nordisk is on the prowl for partnerships and deals to beef up its pipeline, a senior company executive said on Thursday. John McDonald, corporate vice president of global R&D business development, said the Danish drugmaker aims to shed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":34347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-34346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ430LX-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34346"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35698,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34346\/revisions\/35698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}