The company’s global CEO says he wants to tackle chronic disease, and he has solid tips for government, industry, employers and us regular folk too.
The pharmaceutical company with an income higher than the GDP of its host nation is not just about spruiking drugs; it really wants to help Australia deal with our “chronic disease crisis”, according to global CEO of Novo Nordisk, Mike Doustdar.
Mr Doustdar is a company man. He became president and global CEO of Danish-based pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk in August 2025, but he has been with them since 1992, starting as an office clerk and working his way up through various facets of the operation.
Better known for its political guests, the National Press Club of Australia accepted the company’s proposal that he address its members because of the health public policy issues, an NPC spokesperson told TMR.
This article originally ran on TMR’s sister site, Health Services Daily. TMR readers can sign up for a discounted subscription.
The policy import of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster GLP-1 class of drugs cannot be understated. They have taken the world by storm, revolutionising diabetes treatment and looking to have a similarly huge impact on many other health conditions.
In April 2024, Novo Nordisk had a market value of more than $570 billion – “that’s a ‘B’; larger than the entire economy of Denmark”, said NPC president and Sky News anchor Tom Connell in his introduction to Mr Doustdar’s address, which was not televised live on ABC because the broadcaster was busy with another big Danish visit, the country’s King and Queen.
Mr Doustdar was there to talk about chronic disease, calling it “the health challenge of the century”.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the 21st century-defining health challenge is not infectious diseases. It’s chronic diseases, and the gateway is obesity,” he told journalists.
“For too long, the conversation around weight has been clouded by misconception. Let me be clear: obesity is not a choice. It’s a multi-faceted metabolic chronic disease that affects each person differently.”
In Australia, GLP-1 drugs are not subsidised for obesity. Currently, they are only covered for use in diabetes, and late last year PBAC recommended the government accept Novo Nordisk’s applications for PBS subsidy to include adults with established cardiovascular disease with obesity “under certain circumstances, contingent upon a price reduction and risk sharing arrangement”. Progress is ongoing (and can be tracked here).
“You’ve come to the National Press Club, which is a house of grand cynics,” noted Andrew Probyn, journalist and NPC director. “Am I wrong in thinking that … you believe this [PBAC recommendation] is overly restrictive and that your wonder drug might be best more widely applied?”
There were 155,000 people in Australia with a BMI of 30 or higher and cardiovascular comorbidity who would benefit from implementing the PBAC recommendation, said Mr Doustdar, but there were still 13 million people living with obesity and 2.5 million people included in “the broader scheme of the dialogue and discussions” who were still paying out of pocket.
(“The good news is we have received a positive opinion now on that sub population … that’s all I can tell you,” he mentioned later).
More people deserved support with accessing GLP-1s and covering all of them was ambitious, but the company was taking things “step by step”, he said.
Australians who are not covered by the PBS subsidy currently pay $4000-$5000 a year for the drugs.
Asked by SBS journalist Anna Henderson about that high cost, Mr Doustdar said it was because of the years of work that went into developing a drug, and the need to recoup some of that to reinvest in further drug development. It was a lot of money if individuals had to pay it rather than governments, especially when it had to be taken for life – as with other chronic illnesses – unless a cure was found.
“So our job, of course, is to continue having good dialogues with the world at large, to try and explain treating obesity today saves money, and obesity is not a choice but a chronic disease that needs to be treated,” he said.
Australia had one of the best prices globally for GLP-1s and it was continuing to come down with volume, said Mr Doustdar.
But trying to fund GLP-1s for 13 million people could send the health system broke, Megan Brodie from MedNews pointed out, so do we wait for cheaper prices before funding drugs publicly, or take a broader view that we’re saving money in the long run by funding them now?
Mr Doustdar said there were plenty of inefficiencies in health systems that had nothing to do with medicines, which only accounted for 15% of the healthcare budget (16.7% according to AIHW and PBS figures for 2023-24), and they could be “scrutinised little bit more, so that the pressure is not always on the lowest common denominator, which happens to be medicine prices”.
“Even if you make the medicine prices to zero, healthcare systems will go bankrupt the same way that they are progressing with the inefficiencies.
“So I encourage every health minister to look broadly into exactly where the money is going and try to find efficiencies in the whole system,” he said.
A broke health system was “not a good payer” and “not a good partner”, so the true value of the drug had to be found, said Mr Doustdar. Eventually the drugs would become cheaper with more competition, loss of exclusivity and newer drugs.
“And that equilibrium and balance is how we have dealt with pharmaceutical industry for decades,” he said.
But tackling chronic disease was not all about drugs and Novo Nordisk was not like other pharmas, said Mr Doustdar. More than 70% of the company was controlled by the not-for-profit Novo Nordisk foundation, which is “dedicated to funding long term solutions that improve people’s health and the system sustainability of the society and the planet”, he said.
Mr Doustdar said Australia could “lead the world in bending the chronic disease curve” by working in partnership with Novo Nordisk.
He said Novo Nordisk wanted to support the Australian government’s 10-year National Strategic Framework for Chronic Conditions.
“Let me share why I believe Australia, more than any other country in the world, can solve the health challenge of the century,” he told audience members.
First of all, we have a very big problem here, he said.
With 13 million people living with diabetes, obesity or overweight, we rank 10th highest in the OECD. The obesity rate has tripled in 45 years. It’s a “gateway” to chronic disease, which directly threatens productivity, economic stability and social wellbeing, he said.
“Now you might be thinking, here comes another pharma CEO to tell us medicine is the answer, but that’s not going to be my answer today. That’s actually not what I’m going to tell you.
“I think I’m here to basically say exactly the opposite, that medicine alone will not solve the chronic disease crisis.
“I’m here to propose that something far more ambitious has to be done. I believe Australia can become the world’s first country to truly bend the obesity-led chronic disease cure curve, not just manage it, not just treat it, but actually prevent it at scale.”
That’s because we’ve managed large-scale change before, he said – in 2012 when we introduced cigarette plain packaging and health warnings, and more recently with our HPV vaccination program taking us towards eradication of cervical cancer.
But governments can’t do it alone, he said. Rather, it would take collaboration from multiple stakeholders and a focus on “prevent today and protect tomorrow”.
Prevention required, first of all, quicker access to drugs than the current 466 days on average taken by the PBS, said Mr Doustdar.
Related
Novo Nordisk is not alone in drawing attention to this number.
In April last year, amid the kerfuffle around Trump administration tariffs, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) said this wait time, along with tough PBS negotiation protocols, didn’t suit them. The Australian government retorted that the PBS was not for sale, but federal health minister Mark Butler did agree that 466 days was too long.
Asked by Katina Curtis from the West Australian what he thought the hold-up was, Mr Doustdar said the HTA and PBS systems were 30 years old and revision was needed. A year-and-a-half on top of the already 10 to 15-year drug development process did not sound like much, but development was going to be much quicker with AI (“shrunk to a third”, he said) and 466 days on top of that for access would be “a major bottleneck”.
An HTA process was to Novo Nordisk’s “competitive advantage” because it was sure about the benefits of its products, he said. “But just do it a little bit faster so that the patients are able to get into it.”
Mr Doustdar said in his speech that a dedicated health budget for obesity, separate from the PBS, would help on the “prevent” front, although in its advice to the health minister in December last year, the PBAC said that “to support equitable access, the PBS, or a single-funder model, was the most appropriate mechanism for subsidy of GLP-1 obesity treatments in Australia”.
After getting the PBS process time down comes the non-drug stuff: “modernise food labelling, enforce responsible marketing, encourage healthier habits by introducing fiscal policies that promote nutrition consumptions and supports initiatives for improved food selection in public institutions. Finally, create healthy places, proactively co design workable cities with transport infrastructure and mandate green spaces into urban planning.”
Nobody with a modicum of interest in public health would find any of these surprising. Health star ratings, a sugar tax and restrictions on junk food advertising to children have long been advocated for by public health experts, clinicians and politicians in Australia.
Then, he said, we needed to protect future generations from facing a similar situation. The three elements here were: schools embedding nutrition and physical activity; community level sports facilities, food security and “culturally responsible”, co-created programs; and thirdly, digital infrastructure to link primary, hospital and community care across people’s lifetimes, Mr Doustdar explained.
Jennifer Bechwati from the Seven Network asked if GLP-1s should be made available for children and adolescents through the public health system.
“The first and foremost solutions are … healthier environments, healthier school, taking care of exercise and food intake. But we are also, of course, making sure that our products are being tested and tried on adolescents and making sure that they are safe. So if support and help is needed on that front, also it’s available so we don’t discriminate the age.”
Novo Nordisk was having a go at helping out the Brisbane area of Logan, in Queensland. It launched the $3 million “Feel Good Futures Program” as part of its global Cities for Better Health (CBH) Childhood Obesity Prevention Initiative (COPI), being run in six cities (“disadvantaged, urban communities”) around the world. The aim was to increase quality of life, physical activity and access to good food. The programs were designed by the community, with the support of Novo Nordisk, said Mr Doustdar.
“Now you might think, what’s in it for Novo Nordisk? Why am I doing this?” he said.
The company has a history of taking long term views, and overall health and prosperity was in everyone’s best interests, including the company’s, he said. Novo Nordisk was committed to funding prevention and care programs and research in Australia, he said.
For example, Mr Doustard announced that Novo Nordisk was that afternoon entering into a partnership with Heart of Australia to support the early detection of chronic liver disease, for which obesity is a risk factor, in rural Queensland.
And he said that over the last five years, they had invested almost $100 million in local clinical trials.
This was also about productivity and building the Australian health innovation sector, and the “moral imperative” to alleviate “preventable suffering”, he said.
“So here’s what I’m proposing. If you’re sitting here or watching and you represent government at any level, I would like you to recommend the following.
“Take the blueprint from the National Strategic Framework and apply political will and investment to implement it at scale.
“Make sure to include industry as a genuine partner in those efforts and not just a passive supplier.
“Build AI, digital, physical and social infrastructure so healthy choices are simple.
“Keep rewarding and investing in prevention. Australia currently invests just over 3% of health spend on prevention – 3%. (The Sax Institute puts it even lower at 2%). Compare that with the other OECD countries, this ranks you, I would say, mid table.”
“Set ambitious and measurable targets with clear timelines and accountability.”
“If you are here on behalf of the industry such as health, mining, infrastructure, step up as genuine partner and co-invest in prevention.
“If you are an employer, recognise that workforce health is a national economic indicator. Offer workplace health checks, coaching, and ensure healthy food and activity options for your employees.”
Asked if he was suggesting that companies pay for GLP-1s for their employees, Mr Doustdar said he wouldn’t tell employers what to do “but a healthy employee is a more productive one, and whichever way we can, as employers, get our employees to a better health situation, it is also beneficial for us as a company. So I can only encourage that.”
He went on: “If you have responsibility for cities and communities, become a hub for change, co-design solutions that work in the local context, pilot projects that people can relate to, and scale them up by sharing better practices wherever you are.
“And to everyone else here today, let’s start by getting your health check. We’re all busy, but small steps can compound into healthier lives and meaningful changes.”
