{"id":473803,"date":"2026-06-03T08:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/473803\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T08:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:34:08","slug":"novo-nordisk-rolls-out-wegovy-pill-in-the-uae-its-first-market-outside-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/473803\/","title":{"rendered":"Novo Nordisk rolls out Wegovy pill in the UAE \u2014 its first market outside the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Novo Nordisk<\/a> is launching its weight loss pill Wegovy in the United Arab Emirates, the Danish drugmaker said Wednesday, marking its first launch outside the U.S. market. <\/p>\n

Novo’s approach will be guided by patient demand, the readiness of healthcare professionals, and the strength of healthcare and telehealth infrastructure, said Emil Kongsh\u00f8j Larsen, executive vice president, International Operations. <\/p>\n

“The UAE has demonstrated strong momentum across all of these areas, and we look forward to bringing Wegovy\u00a0pill to additional select countries in the coming months,” he said.<\/p>\n

The country’s regulator, the Emirates Drug Establishment, approved the Wegovy pill for weight management and reducing the risk of cardiovascular events in high-risk patients earlier this week.<\/a><\/p>\n

Larsen told CNBC last month<\/a> that Novo was “all in” on launching the Wegovy pill in overseas markets, and that it was a “major opportunity.”<\/p>\n

\"Wegovy<\/a>Weight-loss wars go global as Novo Nordisk bets big on its Wegovy pill<\/a><\/p>\n

The UAE launch comes as Novo has been battling a declining share of the weight-loss drug market, which analysts expect could exceed $100 billion by 2030. While Novo was first in launching the so-called GLP-1 drugs for obesity, Lilly’s Mounjaro overtook Novo’s Ozempic as the best-selling GLP-1 in the second quarter of 2025. <\/p>\n

The U.S. still accounts for more than half of sales for both Novo and its chief rival, Eli Lilly<\/a>, which recently launched its own weight-loss pill, Foundayo.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Novo announced alongside its first-quarter earnings in early May<\/a> that, pending approvals, it would launch the pill in certain markets outside the U.S. in the second half of 2026, without naming specific markets. <\/p>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novo Nordisk is launching its weight loss pill Wegovy in the United Arab Emirates, the Danish drugmaker said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2580,304,220,7787,114,357,2576,85,46,2577,7299,79,1032],"class_list":["post-473803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-biotech-and-pharmaceuticals","tag-biotechnology","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-europe","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-eli-lilly-and-co","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-novo-nordisk-a-s","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}