Lil­ly, No­vo’s bet on heart dis­ease starts to take shape, and 2024 could be a piv­otal year for their GLP-1s 

Eli Lil­ly and No­vo Nordisk are steadi­ly — and some­what qui­et­ly — prepar­ing to build com­pre­hen­sive car­dio­vas­cu­lar fran­chis­es helmed by their lu­cra­tive treat­ments for di­a­betes and obe­si­ty.

This year, the com­pa­nies have start­ed to pub­licly talk up their plans to test their GLP-1s in every­thing from heart and kid­ney dis­ease to NASH, set­ting up 2024 as a piv­otal year amid the hype for these drugs.

No­vo’s Phase III SE­LECT tri­al was the first piece of key ev­i­dence. A topline read­out in Au­gust showed a 20% re­duced risk of ma­jor car­dio­vas­cu­lar events in adults with type 2 di­a­betes or obe­si­ty, send­ing rip­ples through­out the in­dus­try about the broad­er po­ten­tial of GLP-1s.

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