Novo Nordisk President and CEO Mike Doustdar has issued an open letter addressing the company’s latest progress in obesity treatment, the clinical performance of its new oral GLP-1 medicine and some of the misconceptions surrounding the treatment.
The letter comes as oral GLP-1 medicines attract growing attention from patients, physicians and the pharmaceutical industry, with convenience becoming an increasingly important part of the obesity-treatment conversation.
Doustdar used the letter to look back at Novo Nordisk’s more than three decades of work in obesity care.
His central message is that obesity should be understood as a complex, chronic metabolic disease rather than simply a question of lifestyle or personal choice.
At the center of Novo Nordisk’s strategy is semaglutide, the company’s GLP-1 molecule.
The company has built a broad clinical programme around semaglutide, with approved medicines covering weight management, type 2 diabetes and certain cardiovascular-related indications.
Novo Nordisk’s obesity journey has progressed significantly since the company introduced its first injectable GLP-1 treatment for weight management in 2015.
That treatment delivered average weight loss of approximately 8%, according to Doustdar, while a later once-weekly injectable treatment demonstrated around 17% average weight loss when taken as prescribed.
But the company saw another challenge emerging: not every patient wants an injectable treatment.
That pushed Novo Nordisk’s researchers to work on an oral formulation capable of delivering a peptide-based GLP-1 drugs, an approach that had long presented significant scientific and formulation challenges.
The result was an oral semaglutide treatment for obesity, which Novo Nordisk describes as the first FDA-approved GLP-1 pill for weight management.
The treatment has now become a major focus of the company’s obesity portfolio, particularly because of the weight-loss results reported in clinical testing.
Doustdar highlighted data from a 64-week clinical trial in which people who remained on the obesity pill achieved approximately 17% average weight loss.
According to Novo Nordisk, this represents the highest weight-loss result reported for an oral GLP-1 treatment and the strongest result from an oral GLP-1 clinical programme to date.
Doustdar also drew attention to an important point when comparing oral obesity treatments: whether participants remain on therapy.
He said competing oral products have so far demonstrated weight loss of around 12% when people remained on their medications, positioning Novo Nordisk’s pill ahead on the company’s comparison.
The early US response has added another dimension to the story.
Doustdar said more than 500,000 prescriptions had been issued for people who had already taken the obesity pill in the US in less than two months after its market launch.
For Novo Nordisk, the significance extends beyond the prescription numbers.
An effective oral option could give patients another way to approach long-term weight management, particularly those who prefer tablets over injections.
The CEO also emphasized that the conversation around obesity needs to change.
Rather than treating obesity as a failure of willpower, he described it as a multifaceted metabolic chronic disease that can develop and affect people differently.
That distinction matters as obesity treatment moves toward longer-term disease management, where medication choice, adherence, effectiveness and patient preferences all play a role.
Novo Nordisk is entering this next phase with a strong focus on GLP-1 innovation, but competition is also becoming more intense as pharmaceutical companies pursue oral and next-generation obesity therapies.
Doustdar’s letter therefore serves as both a reflection on Novo Nordisk’s progress and a statement of where the company intends to go next.
The company’s message is clear: obesity remains a core area of focus, and the future of treatment will increasingly depend on combining meaningful clinical outcomes with options that patients can realistically incorporate into their everyday lives.
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