Mark Materacky, Novo Nordisk consumer marketing chief

Q&A: No­vo Nordisk mar­ket­ing chief aims to change the con­ver­sa­tion around obe­si­ty, even as so­ci­ety has its own plans

No­vo Nordisk con­sumer mar­ket­ing chief Mark Mat­er­acky wants to change the con­ver­sa­tion around obe­si­ty. And with We­govy, the first new an­ti-obe­si­ty med ap­proval in a decade — with good ef­fi­ca­cy and safe­ty da­ta — No­vo seems well po­si­tioned to do that.

How­ev­er, in the year and a half since its ap­proval, We­govy, or semaglu­tide for weight loss, a cas­cade of events has marred the way.

Type 2 di­a­betes meds, in­clud­ing semaglu­tide, mar­ket­ed for di­a­betes treat­ment un­der the brand Ozem­pic, and tirzepatide, sold as Moun­jaro by Eli Lil­ly, start­ed get­ting picked up by new on­line tele­health com­pa­nies, along with per­son­al physi­cians who re­al­ized the meds could be pre­scribed off-la­bel for obe­si­ty and weight loss.

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