Source: Money Control
From both a biomedical and economic point of view, the success of the new class of weight-loss drugs is something to behold. Not only are they a remarkable scientific achievement, but — in the case of Ozempic and Wegovy, both made by Novo Nordisk — they are a huge boon to the Danish economy. The Danish pharmaceutical industry kept Denmark from falling into a recession last year.
The dependence of some mid-sized economies on a single commodity, often related to oil or natural gas, is a familiar story. The new twist, which may become increasingly common, is a national economy dependent on a single company — not a natural resource. This will lead to some fundamentally new economic and political dynamics.
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One early example of this phenomenon is Nokia in Finland. Finland is a small country, and Nokia’s global sales of mobile phones were such that by 2000, the company accounted for about 4 percent of national GDP and almost 70 percent of the value of the Finnish stock market. In 2013, having failed to keep up with new technology, Nokia was bought by Microsoft.
Will there be more stories like Nokia’s and Novo Nordisk’s? Almost certainly. Many of the world’s best governed countries, which create the legal and economic stability crucial to business success, have populations of between 5 million and 20 million. And the more globalisation proceeds (international trade still is expanding in most economic sectors), the larger such companies can become.
