Business strategy

As a focused healthcare company, Novo Nordisk is committed to leading the fight against diabetes. In this promise lies a clear business rationale and a social commitment deeply rooted in the company’s way of doing business.

Effective prevention, early diagnosis and optimum treatment improve the health of people with diabetes. This is what drives Novo Nordisk’s mission of changing diabetes. As a world leader in diabetes care, the company pursues its aspiration to defeat diabetes while building its business on sustained and balanced growth.

Novo Nordisk’s strong position in diabetes care builds on more than 80 years of experience. Since the first successful experiments in 1922 extracting insulin from the pancreas of cows and pigs, Novo Nordisk’s production has been based on biotechnology. Fermentation is the core process, today using genetically modified
microorganisms to produce insulin.

Novo Nordisk’s strategy is to provide diabetes care leadership and, furthermore, to make a difference in other areas of unmet medical need where the company can make competitive use of its biotechnology platform. The R&D pipeline is updated regularly.

Novo Nordisk’s diabetes strategy is based on the industry’s broadest portfolio of insulin analogues and injection devices that deliver physiological control for people with diabetes. Good control is critical for preventing serious long-term complications such as blindness, kidney disease, foot and leg amputations, nerve damage, heart disease and stroke.

Curbing the unfolding epidemic of diabetes requires a focused business strategy that takes into account the need to get more people into better control of their condition.

The company’s insulin portfolio is built on the knowledge that, to effectively control blood glucose, it is important to address both fasting blood glucose (in between mealtimes) and post-prandial glucose (after mealtimes).

The Novo Nordisk product range therefore includes both fast-acting and long-acting insulin analogues. A full range of insulin analogues accommodates the need for people with diabetes to intensify insulin treatment over time in order to reach optimum blood glucose levels and avoid serious complications.

Insulin analogues are designed to mimic more closely the body’s own physiological insulin regulation of blood glucose levels than human insulin, and offer better mealtime glucose control, less hypoglycaemia and increased convenience for all types of people with diabetes.

The biopharmaceuticals business showed healthy growth in 2005, particularly in sales of NovoSeven®, but also within growth hormone therapy.

The company’s biopharmaceuticals business is an increasing growth driver, primarily fuelled by the blood coagulation factor rFVIIa, marketed as NovoSeven®. The drug is currently marketed for people with haemophilia with inhibitors (antibodies) against their existing factor medication and for other people with rare bleeding disorders.

NovoSeven® is currently in phase 3 clinical development for use in the treatment of blunt trauma, for example in connection with traffic accidents, and for intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH), and in phase 2 for other critical bleeding conditions. Read more.

Recently, Novo Nordisk started research within cancer and inflammation. The strategy here is to compile a sustainable portfolio of promising biological drug candidates, building on the company’s expertise in proteins and biopharmaceuticals and its knowledge of immunology from type 1 diabetes.

These therapeutic areas have many similarities to diabetes and haemophilia. They represent chronic therapy areas, they increasingly require patient self-management through injections, and they require specialist and hospital-based treatment.

There are three main areas of competence – research into diabetes, therapeutic proteins and the delivery of these. These form the basis of Novo Nordisk’s R&D strategy and core competences that have been developed over more than 80 years and continuously refined in the process.

In 2005 the research activities within diabetes care and biopharmaceuticals were split into two separate research units to boost innovation and to build a broader presence within biopharmaceuticals.

In diabetes, Novo Nordisk is defining its leadership through insulin analogues. In type 1 diabetes, insulin is the only therapy, and in type 2 diabetes, it is, in many cases, the best therapy.

Insulin analogues are a critical step in helping people with diabetes to achieve better control of their condition and avoid serious complications. That is the focus of our ongoing development and continued refinement of our insulin analogues: to bring patients back to a near-normal blood sugar level without increasing the risk of low blood glucose levels (hypoglycaemia). Many studies have shown that more intensified treatment can significantly reduce the risk of developing late-stage complications.

In January 2006 the first of Novo Nordisk’s next-generation insulins entered phase 1 trials. We believe that these new insulins will provide even greater treatment benefits.

Delivery is a core component of Novo Nordisk’s strategy. We have the broadest portfolio of insulin injection devices and are exploring new concepts for insulin delivery, including the AERx® iDMS. The AERx® insulin Diabetes Management System is an inhalable insulin, which we believe will be a viable treatment option that makes it easier for some people with diabetes to begin insulin therapy.

In recent years Novo Nordisk has had to abandon OAD projects when clinical results failed to indicate a sufficient competitive advantage for our compounds compared with similar marketed products. But the company continues to pursue better treatment options other than injections. A new project entered phase 1 in late 2005. Novo Nordisk will continue to invest in OAD projects when they show significant advantages over current treatment standards.

Our research focus in OADs relates to blood sugar regulation, insulin resistance and obesity.

A cure is our ultimate goal. Although we believe it will take at least a decade to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, Novo Nordisk is very much at the forefront of stem cell research in this area. We believe this holds the greatest promise of creating a safe, stable and widely available source of insulin-secreting cells for transplantation into people with type 1 diabetes.

This page has been assessed by PricewaterhouseCoopers as part of its assessment of Novo Nordisk’s statement that it reports ‘in accordance’ with GRI. Please refer to Audit and assurance for a full description of the nature of assurance offered.