First glimpse of new Novo Nordisk CEO’s strategy at JP Morgan

Maziar Mike Doustdar (pictured, above), the new president and chief executive of Danish pharma major Novo Nordisk (NOV: N), had the chance to set out his stall during a presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday.

Mr Doustdar took over from Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen in August. His predecessor had left the company following a tough period which had seen shares in Novo Nordisk drop sharply and sales of GLP-1 agonist Wegovy/Ozempic (semaglutide), the company’s much-hyped obesity product, fail to meet expectations.

Promising to learn from mistakes made, Mr Doustdar vowed to better take advantage of direct-to-patient and cash-pay channels in obesity, and to make the most of the strength of data supporting oral Wegovy, which he said bested Eli Lilly's (NYSE: LLY) rival pill orforglipron on both efficacy and tolerability.