Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug cuts risk of strokes and heart attacks
Novo Nordisk’s best-selling obesity drug cuts the risk of heart attacks or strokes, according to the findings of a late-stage trial that sent shares in the Danish pharmaceutical company and its main rival Eli Lilly to record highs on Tuesday.
The study’s preliminary results found that patients who took the Wegovy drug had a 20 per cent lower chance of suffering a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke than those who received a placebo.
Analysts said the results would pressure public health systems and private health insurers to cover a new class of weight-loss drugs called GLP-1 agonists developed by Novo and US drugmaker Lilly.
In the US, some health insurers have been reluctant to cover the drugs because of their high cost and the sheer number of people who qualify to take them, with obesity affecting about 40 per cent of the population.
Evan Seigerman, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said the health benefits demonstrated by Novo’s trial now made it “unethical” for payers to not provide these potentially life-saving medications to patients who needed them.
Expanding insurance coverage for Wegovy and Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro, which is expected to be approved to treat weight loss in the autumn, could unlock a more than $100bn-a-year obesity market, he said.
Novo’s shares surged as much as 16 per cent after publication of the study while Lilly shares jumped 16 per cent to a record high of $527.50 in early trading. The US drugmaker was also boosted by publication of financial results, which showed sales of Mounjaro hit almost $1bn in the second quarter. Lilly raised its full-year annual sales forecast by $2.2bn to the range of $33.4bn to $33.9bn.
Over the past 12 months Lilly’s shares have increased by 75 per cent, enabling the Indianapolis-based company to surpass Johnson & Johnson as the world’s most valuable drugmaker by market capitalisation.
Novo said the Wegovy trial, which enrolled 17,604 adults aged 45 or older, had achieved its primary objective by showing a statistically significant reduction in major cardiac events for patients who received 2.4mg of the drug semaglutide, the main ingredient in Wegovy, compared with those who took the placebo.
While many clinicians and researchers had assumed that Wegovy would automatically improve the health of patients’ hearts as they lost weight, the trial’s findings will be used by Novo as it makes the case to health systems and insurers to buy the medicine.
Martin Holst Lange, executive vice-president for development at Novo, said that until now there had been no approved weight management drug that also reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke.
It was a “landmark trial” that demonstrated the drug had “the potential to change how obesity is regarded and treated”, he said.
Novo expects to file for regulatory sign-off to expand what Wegovy is approved for use for, showing that it can reduce cardiac risks, in the US and the EU this year. The full results of the trial will be presented at a scientific conference later in 2023.
So far, manufacturing problems have restricted supplies in the UK, but the country’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, has said the drugs will be paid for by the NHS, but restricted to those with higher BMIs and only for two years.
Nevertheless, investors’ confidence in the potential for Wegovy has transformed the fortunes of Novo, making the Danish company Europe’s largest drugmaker by market capitalisation.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Jamie Smyth
