If you invest in big pharma or the large pharmaceutical companies, invariably you will want to see which drugs are billion dollar drugs, that are reasonably good for patients, and what the companies in the pipeline. If you ever watched a western movie, you might remember the sight of a travelling wagon where the owner/driver rolls into a town and sets up on main street to suggest to all that the drugs he is carrying will cure all your concerns. One of the biggest healthy concerns the developed countries have is weight loss. It seems it is ingrained in our normal conversation and there are multiple of ways to tackle the subject. The big promise from health care is to take a pill and you will lose some weight. This may be what more and more people will be doing besides eating reasonably healthy, doing exercise and getting enough sleep, but if you can take a pill, will you?

For anyone interested and it seems, the FDA is going to approve it and more importantly insurance companies will pay the bills, the most important player is a Danish firm called Novo Nordisk.

In an article by Eshe Nelson of the New York Times News Service, the company has suddenly grown so big it is reshaping the Danish economy. The magic pills are called Ozempic and Wegovy.

The price of the shares of the company has gone from $500 to over $1,300 and the overseas sales of the drugs has allowed the Danish Central Bank to keep interest rates low rather than raising them. The share price has made the company second to LVMH as the 2nd most valuable company in Europe.

If you know someone that has diabetes, you may have heard about the company. The US FDA approved Ozempic and Wegovy as diabetes medication, but they seem to have good news on the weight side of the business. The company’s profit has surged to over $7.7 billion in the first half of the year and this has created more revenues for the country’s tax revenues as Novo Nordisk is the number one contributor of corporate taxes to the Danish government.

According to the Centers for the Disease and Prevention Control over 100 million Americans adults are obese. This suggests there is room for Novo to grow as more doctors prescribe the pill. There is an old commercial of ordering a large pizza and a diet coke, now consumers will add the chips and a Novo pill.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we saw in the Oxycontin drug that a pill that can help with pain had tremendous side affects. If the side affects of the Novo pills are very manageable then given the population who could be using the drugs, and the FDA approvals, then owning the company for a long term can be a very good investment for big pharma companies can be very profitable.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.