Ozempic’s largest facet impact: Turning Denmark right into a ‘pharmastate’?

What in case your whole financial system was primarily based on one product? TV commercials joke that America runs on Dunkin’, however for all intents and functions, Denmark fairly actually runs on Ozempic, a diabetes medicine that’s now broadly utilized by customers to drop some weight.

Ozempic is proving to be a robust development engine. Its worldwide gross sales have elevated by over 60% up to now 12 months alone. In the US, which is one in all its largest markets, prescriptions for Ozempic and comparable medication quadrupled between 2020 and 2022. And even with these blockbuster gross sales, demand is so excessive that there was a persistent scarcity of Ozempic within the U.S. for a big a part of the previous few years.

Ozempic’s producer, the Danish firm Novo Nordisk, is reaping the fruits of the craze. Its web revenue greater than doubled between 2019 and 2023, and its inventory has soared to new heights. On the finish of 2023, Novo grew to become the most important firm in Europe. And its rise has eclipsed the Danish financial system, creating loads of worth on the one hand, however an imbalanced financial system on the opposite.

You might need heard of “petrostates,” international locations the place fossil gasoline extraction dominates the financial system. By that measure, you would possibly name Denmark a pharmastate, as a result of Novo now dominates the Danish financial system.

Almost 1 out of each 5 Danish jobs created final 12 months was at Novo. And that is simply straight. For those who additionally embrace the roles that Novo has created not directly — like, for instance, at its suppliers, or from all of the newly rich Novo staff spending their cash at outlets and eating places — practically half of all private-sector nonfarm jobs created in Denmark could be traced again to Novo.

Greater than that, Denmark’s gross home product would have shrunk final 12 months with out the contribution of the pharma sector. In different phrases, the corporate has virtually single-handedly rescued the nation from a recession.

Novo Nordisk’s meteoric trajectory raises a query about financial development that is a lot larger than simply Denmark: Specifically, what are the dangers of getting one large firm driving your whole financial system? And crucially, what occurs if that firm’s fortunes take a flip for the more serious?

Danish illness

In economics, an excessive amount of of an excellent factor can typically be a foul factor. One such case is a phenomenon known as Dutch illness, named after the expertise of the Netherlands within the Nineteen Sixties. And a few economists fear that Novo Nordisk’s rise could trigger Denmark to undergo from it too (for extra on Dutch illness, hearken to this episode of The Indicator from Planet Money).

When the Dutch found huge pure gasoline deposits in Groningen in 1959, they began extracting and exporting the gasoline as quick as attainable. The excessive exports elevated demand for the Dutch foreign money, the guilder, which brought about its worth to skyrocket relative to different currencies. And that in flip made different, non-gas Dutch exports too costly to compete on worldwide markets. This finally decimated the manufacturing sector and raised unemployment within the nation. Paradoxically, the massive windfall ended up hurting the financial system.

Dutch illness is normally related to the invention of pure assets like oil or gasoline, however it could occur from any improvement that causes a spike in international demand for a foreign money. Comparable to: the invention of a miraculous weight reduction drug that everybody on this planet desires to purchase.

Certainly, Novo’s surging drug gross sales have boosted Danish exports and introduced loads of international foreign money into Denmark. As an example, the majority of Novo’s gross sales come from North America. Novo then has to alternate a considerable amount of the international foreign money it earned overseas into Danish kroner to pay its staff’ salaries and its taxes in Denmark, increase its factories there and so forth. This places strain on the krone to extend in worth relative to different currencies, just like the greenback.

Nonetheless, the krone is not allowed to extend a lot in worth as a result of Denmark retains its alternate price fastened to the euro. To offset the strengthening impact on the foreign money, Denmark’s central financial institution has needed to reply by holding rates of interest low. “It may seem strange that weight loss medicine affects interest rates in Denmark, but it does,” Jens Nærvig Pedersen, director of international alternate market and charges technique at Danske Financial institution, advised Bloomberg.

Novo’s actions have had a noticeable impact on the krone, however the central financial institution’s interventions have been ample to maintain its worth steady. Although a hard and fast alternate price cannot at all times prevent from Dutch illness, Denmark has managed to keep away from it to date, and it continues to export all kinds of products right now. And the central financial institution continues to observe Novo’s impact on the foreign money.

The brand new Nokia

The dominance of Novo Nordisk within the Danish financial system has prompted many to warning Denmark towards falling into the identical entice that its Nordic neighbor Finland fell sufferer to years in the past: the Nokia entice.

Again within the early 2000s, Nokia, a telecommunications firm, was the most well liked recreation on the town. The enchantment of its iconic brick cellphone has lengthy since been forgotten within the shadow of a brand new technology of smartphones, however within the early 2000s, Nokia was the world’s largest maker of cell phones. And like Novo Nordisk, it was a enterprise behemoth in its house nation: In its heyday, Nokia was liable for virtually 1 / 4 of Finnish development and generated over 20% of Finland’s exports.

However then catastrophe struck: Within the mid-to-late 2000s, Nokia began quickly dropping market share to Apple and different smartphone producers. The worldwide monetary disaster hit on the similar time, and Finland’s financial system was despatched right into a tailspin. In contrast with its Nordic neighbors, Finland’s financial decline was steeper, and its post-crisis restoration was a lot slower.

The widespread notion was that Nokia’s downfall took the Finnish financial system down. “Steve Jobs took our jobs,” the then-prime minister stated in an interview. The geographic proximity and financial similarity of the scenario elevate a query: Is Denmark in peril of falling into the Nokia entice too?

As is usually the case with economics, the actual reply is advanced. To begin, Nokia’s circumstances had been fairly excessive. It is perhaps uncommon to have an organization of Nokia’s measurement in a small open financial system like Finland, but it surely’s much more uncommon to have an organization go from being the worldwide market chief to slicing tens of hundreds of jobs and getting acquired by one other firm throughout the area of some years.

The truth that the worldwide monetary disaster occurred on the similar time additionally meant that most of the elements on the root of Finland’s financial troubles had been unrelated to Nokia. The Analysis Institute of the Finnish Economic system estimated that Nokia’s direct contribution accounted for over 30% of the GDP decline and 20% of the employment decline between 2008 and 2014. That’s an astounding quantity for one firm to be liable for, but it surely’s nowhere close to the bulk.

Whereas it is unlikely that Novo will undergo from a Nokia-style collapse quickly, some obstacles are on the horizon that would hamper its development sooner or later. International locations are already speaking about implementing stricter value controls on Novo’s medication, and Novo’s patents on Ozempic expire inside a decade, at which level it’s going to most likely should combat towards a wave of competitors from generic-drug producers. And as we see from the info, if Novo stops rising, Denmark possible stops rising too. That is the Nokia entice for Denmark.

One of the simplest ways to keep away from this may be for different Danish firms to develop sooner and generate extra worth, in order that financial development within the nation turns into pushed by many firms fairly than one. However that is simpler stated than achieved, particularly given Europe’s stagnant financial atmosphere.

The opposite side of the Nokia entice is that Denmark would possibly develop into complacent, equating Novo’s success with the success of its financial system as an entire. However partly as a result of they’ve Finland’s expertise to study from, Danish policymakers are rigorously monitoring the financial system for indicators of underlying weaknesses that may get masked by the “Novo effect.” The nation’s nationwide statistical company just lately printed GDP figures with and with out the contribution of the pharmaceutical business, and the financial ministry referenced the corporate 31 occasions in its latest financial report.

If handled rigorously, Denmark’s drawback is usually a good one to have. Novo Nordisk’s astounding success is nice for the Danish financial system, after all, however provided that policymakers perceive the dangers that include having an excessive amount of of an excellent factor. For now, it looks as if they do.