OZEMPICS BOOM TIMES

Novo Nordisk has made tens of billions in profit from its revolutionary weight loss and diabetes drugs. Now the pharma giant is racing to reinvest in the future—before competitors catch up.

- Vivienne Walt

OFFICIALS IN THE TOWN of Kalundborg have long touted the 800-year-old local church, with its five towers, as a must-see attraction. The Vor Frue Kirke didn’t draw hordes of tourists, however, since the Danish community of 16,000 sits far off the beaten track, 62 miles from Copenhagen.

But now the world has landed on Kalundborg’s doorstep, turning it from quiet outpost to boomtown. An influx of newcomers has been drawn by something much more modern: a multibillion-dollar expansion spree funded by Novo Nordisk, the Danish drug manufacturer of the breakthrough diabetes and obesity treatments Ozempic and Wegovy.

Seen from the office window of Kalundborg’s longtime mayor, Martin Damm, a forest of cranes now dwarfs the church towers (though Damm makes sure to point them out). On gouged-out plots of land, floodlit after dark, thousands of construction workers toil around the clock to finish four new and upgraded Novo factories, or to pave sidewalks for three new neighborhoods to accommodate thousands of new residents. Other workers will soon finally break ground on a new highway to Copenhagen—something for which the town has pushed for 30 years, according to Damm.

The Ozempic and Wegovy craze, of course, is felt far beyond tiny Kalundborg. Those drugs have turned Novo Nordisk into a global powerhouse, with $42 billion in sales last year, for a while making it Europe’s most valuable company. But the speed and scale of its impact is perfectly captured, in miniature, in the town’s blazing-fast expansion. Since 2021, Novo Nordisk has committed to spending 65 billion Danish kroner (nearly $9.5 billion) this decade to boost production of raw pharmaceutical ingredients in Kalundborg. The company has manufactured insulin in the town since 1969, but the mammoth new facilities will far outstrip those factories.