Money Talks: Why weight-loss drugs will reshape the world
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More than 1bn people around the world are obese. That means there should be extraordinary demand for drugs to cure or mitigate the condition. Novo Nordisk is now Europe’s most valuable company and Eli Lilly’s market value has more than doubled. Both make the “miracle” drugs that can help people shed up to a fifth of their body weight. But these drugs promise to do more than boost drug companies’ profits. How will they reshape the economy?
Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Mike Bird and Tom Lee-Devlin. Guests: The Economist’s Georgia Banjo; pharmaceuticals analyst Michael Nedelcovych; and John Cawley, a professor of public policy and economics at Cornell University.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello. This episode of Money Talks is available to listen to for free. But if you want to listen |
| 0:05.8 | every week, you'll need to be an economist subscriber. For full details, search online for economist |
| 0:11.6 | podcasts. |
| 0:16.9 | In a world of seismic change, will your business shape the future or be shaped by it? |
| 0:22.6 | How will we capture the imagination of tomorrow's consumers? |
| 0:27.6 | Overcome operational constraints to focus on future growth |
| 0:32.6 | and unlock economic and social prosperity through environmental responsibility. |
| 0:38.5 | With EY's full spectrum of services across sectors, we're all in to shape the future with confidence. |
| 0:44.3 | Start your transformation journey at EY.com slash transformation. The Economist |
| 0:57.0 | So when I went to Denmark in January, it was unusually cold even for Denmark. |
| 1:15.6 | It was about minus 10 degrees. I brought my thickest jacket, and it still wasn't really enough. |
| 1:23.6 | Georgia Banjo writes about health for the economist. |
| 1:28.5 | Kalenborg's a small town in the centre of Denmark. |
| 1:32.7 | It's home to around 16,000 people. |
| 1:36.4 | The high street is like any other high street, |
| 1:39.3 | lots of new boutiques opening up, |
| 1:41.8 | a craft beer shop. |
| 1:43.6 | But the skyline really is quite unusual because it's dominated by these huge factories. |
| 1:49.9 | Many of those factories are owned by the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, |
| 1:54.4 | the maker of a Zempic and Wegovi, two groundbreaking weight-loss drugs. |
| 1:59.7 | Novo Nordisk, which has now overtaken LVMH to become a Europe's most valuable company, |
| 2:04.6 | has had so much success making and selling these drugs that it is now driving the Danish economy. |
... |
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