Novo Nordisk shares jump on Wegovy heart benefit alongside weight loss

(Video Transcript)

Contenders battle it out in obesity drug race

It’s all about obesity drugs, especially in the last few weeks, Novo Nordisk is rising and lifting the overall drug market here in Europe. This is after news at the weekend that Novo Nordisk released saying that its drug Wegovy, which is used for weight loss, has heart protective benefits.

Now, all this comes at a time when many contenders are trying to release their drugs and gain approval in this space. Eli Lilly, of course, one of them in the last week, has got the green light for its peer drug from the US and the UK.

But also wanting to show you AstraZeneca, because AstraZeneca earlier today announced that it had entered the race as well. It added an obesity drug via an acquisition of a drug from the biotech company, Ecogene. This is to develop and commercialise ECC5004.

AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Amgen jump in

Now, all this comes at a time when there's a space race in these obesity drugs. Pfizer, Amgen, some of the other drug makers that also have drugs in this space, showing you Amgen as well. However, it has to be said that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk currently are in the lead.

So where is the sala dressing? If you think the risks for these drugs that are still relatively untested are low, then perhaps you want to increase your exposure to these stocks because there is a huge amount of diabetes and obesity in first-world countries.

Obesity drug to hit market after Thanksgiving

And what's also key is that if you think that this is a very interesting space and could have potential upside, you want to pay more attention to the data about the cardiac benefits and also the potential impact if this drug is then rolled out to national health systems like the National Health Service in the UK.

Bear in mind, some of these drugs are expected to go on sale as soon as Thanksgiving is over.