Novo Nordisk CEO says the drugmaker is more active than ever in seeking out deals

Novo Nordisk is looking for deals more than ever before, the CEO of the Danish drugmaker said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

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“If our ambition is to help hundreds of millions of patients out there, then we need not just the best, but the broadest pipeline in the world,” said Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar. “So let’s go and see who else basically has assets that are complementary to what we have. And we are quite active with those [business development] talks and acquisitions, and you’ll see more of those as well going forward.”

Novo created the market for GLP-1 weight loss drugs with its weekly shots Ozempic and Wegovy. More recently, the company has faced concerns from analysts about whether Novo’s pipeline is robust enough for it to remain a leader in the increasingly competitive obesity drug space.

Rival Eli Lilly has already overtaken Novo in market share for weekly GLP-1 shots, though Novo has taken an early lead in the new category of GLP-1 pills for weight loss.

Doustdar said he disagrees with the concerns about Novo’s upcoming treatments, arguing the drugmaker has “one of the best pipelines in the industry.” He pointed to Novo’s CagriSema, a drug candidate that targets GLP-1 and amylin, that Novo hopes will be approved at the end of this year, and an experimental amylin-targeting drug called zenagamtide that Novo has accelerated development of, among other assets.

“Of course, there’s a lot of things in my pipeline that right now I have the privy to look into and get excited (about) but not have shared it yet with the world,” he said. “So I am incredibly excited about our pipeline, and I would just say to the investors who are a little bit skeptical, wait and see.”

Doustdar spoke to CNBC after the company said its Wegovy pill performed better than expected in the first quarter, and it raised its full-year profit guidance.