A Startling Transition in Leadership at Novo Nordisk

“Today, we salute you, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen,” writes Dave Knapp on his widely-read substack commentary. After a startling transition in leadership at Novo Nordisk, Jørgensen is now the outgoing CEO. Jørgensen is the CEO who guided the successful launch of Ozempic and Wegovy. He made the company into one of the most valuable in Europe.

The charitable Novo Nordisk Foundation controls the Novo Nordisk business. As the value of the company’s stock dropped by half in the past year, the foundation began to see the need for this leadership transition.

A Visionary Company

There can be no doubt that Novo Nordisk has been visionary in obesity. As Knapp writes in his salute to Jørgensen, the company led by him was a lone voice in the wilderness, crying out to take obesity as seriously any other chronic disease. It looked like a huge gamble for a company that had made its mark as a dominant force in diabetes care. A similar effort by Sanofi failed disastrously.

We met Jørgensen at a day of DEEP (Disease Experience Expert Panels) talks inside Novo Nordisk headquarters in Copenhagen six years ago. He sat down for an informal supper with a diverse assortment people living with obesity. Afterward, he hopped on his bike and pedaled home. Not what we expected from the CEO of a pharmaceutical juggernaut.

His and the company’s vision paid off, and now most of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies – along with quite an assortment of startups – want to join in.

Unprecedented Challenges

The success of creating the biggest market ever for a medicine has brought quite a string of challenges. Novo Nordisk brought Saxenda and Wegovy into the market for obesity care at a reasonable price for a specialty pharmaceutical that might be used sparingly.

But as it became obvious that the market for obesity treatment was going to grow explosively, that price seemed destined to fall. When the list price of your product is ten times what the market will ultimately bear, you have a tricky problem to solve. Making the problem worse was the fact that supply was short and the company was selling all it could make without a big price cut.

But market pressures are bringing prices down and the supply is growing. The shortage is over. And meanwhile Novo’s relationship with patient advocates seems a little strained. We chalk it up to a company facing unprecedented pressures.

Jørgensen accomplished much and can take pride in that. The challenges ahead will be great and we hope that new leaders of this company will meet the moment. We also hope they will build back a closer alliance with advocates for persons living with obesity.

Click here, here, and here for more on the transition at the top for Novo Nordisk.

Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen Testifying in a Senate HELP Hearing, photograph by Aden Belay

Subscribe by email to follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health, obesity, and policy.

May 18, 2025