The type 2 diabetes medication called Ozempic is, without a doubt, Novo NordiskIt is (NYSE:NVO) knight in shining armor. Thanks to impressive demand and the company’s dedicated efforts to explore other conditions that the drug could potentially treat, there appears to be considerable upside potential for investors.
Part of this positive potential has just taken a big step towards its realization. Here’s why the investment opportunity is even more bullish than it was before.
This key market is now within reach
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) causes a progressive loss of kidney functionality that eventually becomes so severe that it causes, among other things, heart problems. According to Maximize Market Research, the CKD drug market will reach a size of $19.2 billion by 2030.
In the context of patients with type 2 diabetes who also have CKD, the risk of cardiovascular events is particularly high. So, if there were a drug that was known to be useful in treating type 2 diabetes and reducing cardiovascular risks, but was also found to be useful in treating CKD, it would meet a medical need complex and would probably find a decent market.
Novo Nordisk would not be the only competitor in this market, but it would probably be able to secure a significant share market share whether this could provide a tailor-made solution for specific pathologies, symptoms or comorbidities of particular concern. According to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine May 24, Ozempic is this medicine.
Among the 1,767 high-risk patients in the trial who received semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, the risk of experiencing major kidney disease was 24% lower than those who received a placebo. These events included kidney failure, the need for a kidney transplant, the start of dialysis, or a significant drop in the kidney’s filtration rate. Their risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attacks was also 18% lower than patients who received the placebo. In addition, the rate of their progressive renal dysfunction decreased significantly.
The study took measurements from participants for a total of 3.4 years. This is long enough to determine whether semaglutide was able to maintain its beneficial effects, and also long enough to determine whether patients could actually tolerate taking the drug permanently. The icing on the cake is that even during this relatively long period, fewer patients in the treatment group experienced serious side effects than those taking the placebo. The bottom line is that these are very good results.
All of this means that the likelihood of Novo Nordisk getting regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to agree to add CKD to Ozempic’s list of approved indications is very high. Likewise, the likelihood that clinicians will then be willing to treat their high-risk patients with both CKD and type 2 diabetes with semaglutide…
