Ozempic CEO’s exit from Novo started with Teams call surprise

When Novo Nordisk An Official Executive Elegortive Elder Fruergagaard Joradensen dialal at Chails Video Call with Chairman Lund, he looks forward to an ordinary catchup.

Instead, Jorgensen said Lund’s effectively told her she had to go.

After a 53% reduction last year of the Creator’s Share Vice of Wegegy Strotity Shots, setbacks on the tests of new competition from Eli Lilly & Co., the foundation controlling Novo announces his chalkboard not satisfied with the company’s direction.

So Friday, Novo said it replaced Jorgensen, the executive carrying one of the largest drug franchises in Ozemptoh market – $ 26 billion

“I respect that,” Jorgensen, 58, said in an interview. “I think that part of the game, so say. It’s not for me to judge behaviors.”

Step is more strange in the market as it is for executive. Jorgensen said after calling teams and meetings that followed a little more than one day, clearly seeking a new leader in the Obesity company.

The rival of its arc Lilly is the jump ahead of the Zepbound, a medicine drug withProvedIt can take a lot of pounds than wegovy. The more fierce competition is on the cards, with lilly in lead in the race for a strong and easy extraction of obesity pill. The own candidate in novo’s series of generationCagisesoA shot built in the existing blockbuster semaglutide (the main component of ozemptic and wegegy), falls in the comments of the company in clinical trials.

Novo looks outside as well as internal candidates for the next CEO, Lund said in an interview. DrugMaker has five CEOs in its long history, and none of them are from outside the company. Although on a call with analysts, Lund often said that Novo’s strategy would remain both, in the interview, he was especially nuanced.

Novo game plan “should improve and change to fit the market and the environment,” he said. For Lund, Novo’s chaos joined a troubled time he passed by another company: Bot. Last month, he said he would go down from BP chairman in UK Energy to win the investor’s trust in his watch. BP market value if Lund becomes chairman about $ 106 billion. Now, almost $ 78 billion.

Have never been a step

In Novo, Jorgensen’s departure is an unsteady step for a self-valuing company for its strength. Sudden moves are a reflection of the power of the largest shareholaker of the Danish Nordisk Foundation, using the volume of how the company runs.

Jorgensen said that before calling with Lund, he often feels strong support from Novo’s board.

“No issues don’t know between handling and riding,” he said. “There’s nothing like that, as, gaps in strategic choice. I have a strong support in the direction we chase

Like many Novo managers, Jorgensen spends his company career, long time-targeted diabetes market. Insulin is often renewed novo product.

When Jorgensen took the CEO in 2017, the company navigated a transition to treated not only diabetes, but also overloaded. Ozemptic hit the US market in 2018. In 2021, Jorgensen took the sister to treat BiseGovy, for weight loss, in the US market.

Novo’s shares that are clear because the powerful new drugs that make a new market for the treatment of obesity. In 2023, the company confirmed that Wegovy reduces the risk of heart attack and attack, an important step in getting insurers to pay for expensive treatment.

Then, a little one year ago, Novo’s challenges began to gather. The company has to protect its prices for the Ozemptic and Wegegy in Congress, which Jorgensen asked Bernie Sanders during the Senate hearing.

Shortly thereafter, Cagisema failed to live with the potential, while Lilly’s medicines have given the clinic victories. Novo also continued to struggle to meet the need for Wegovy, a factor that some analysts now help to hit the market Lilly’s competing shot.

“Last year, when Novo didn’t send doses of starter in Wegegy. I think they started to make a more permanent market transfer,” as Evan Seigerman, an analyst of BMO markets. “If a prescription has the option to write Zepbound or Wegovy and they will continue to write Wegovy Scripts and you should return, what do you know these are these habits to say.

Sorensen’s return

Living is a return for the first of Jorgensen, Lars Rebien Sorensen, leading Novo in the first 16000 on the supervisory board, at the beginning of a Rovenver Member from next year. The foundation issued a statement that supports Sorensen, saying that his “experience and perspectives become valuable.”

The world’s richest triterable foundation, the Novo Foundation was controlled by DrugMaker by a structure of sharing two given to a 77% company sharing despite 28% of its capital. Its assets lost 4.8% of the value last year, leaving it with 1.06 trillion Danish Kroner ($ 159 billion), about twice the amount of foundation gate.

“Novo We have already been deeply offers the decent value for those who can view the novo uncertainty, worth the amount of £ 6.5 million ($ 8.6 million).

But for many employees, the news happened.

To atampikoPosted on Danish Broadcaster TV2 Friday, employees Jorgensen walked down the staircase to the open trunk of Drugmaker.

“You are real a lighthouse for all of us,” Jacob Petersen, the head of Novo’s diabetes, obesity and mash in LinkedIn.

This story originally shown Fortune.com

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