Novo Nordisk has ballooned to become one of Europe’s most valuable companies, thanks to skyrocketing sales of Ozempic, the diabetes medicine that’s grown into a world—leading weight-loss drug.
Our waistlines have also ballooned—and not just from the excesses of the festive period. Novo Nordisk estimates there are 1 billion people worldwide suffering from obesity, and already an estimated 8 million people are trusting next-generation weight-loss drugs like Ozempic to shed those extra pounds.
Novo Nordisk’s rapid rise is a story worth celebrating. The pharma giant ranks No. 116 on the Fortune 500 Europe list and appears on the latest World’s Most Admired Companies list. In recent years, few European companies have achieved global scale at such a pace. Novo Nordisk’s valuation briefly surpassed the entire economy of its home country, Denmark, in late 2024, and Ozempic remains the overwhelming market leader, despite challenges from American juggernauts like Eli Lilly.
Novo Nordisk’s outsize success raises a bigger question: When is a company too big to fail? As Ryan Hogg explores Denmark’s economy would have entered negative growth in 2023 if it weren’t for the country’s pharmaceuticals sector, dominated largely by Novo Nordisk. And when disappointing clinical trial results for the company’s new weight-loss drug were revealed, its share price tanked by almost 20%, wiping billions off its market capitalization.
Novo Nordisk’s outsize success raises a bigger question: When is a company too big to fail?
It’s a problem that has plagued European governments for decades, from the credit-crunch bank bailouts of 2008 to more recent rescue packages for the likes of Lufthansa (€9 billion) and Air France–KLM (€7.7 billion), after those airlines were battered by pandemic-era lockdowns.
Nokia provides a cautionary tale for Denmark and Novo Nordisk. Once a market leader in mobile phones, Nokia contributed 25% of Finland’s GDP growth before the smartphone era. When Nokia’s models succumbed to Apple’s iPhone, Nokia took down much of the Finnish economy with it, coining the term “the Nokia effect.”
Despite this, Nokia, like many tech-first businesses, left a legacy of innovation that lives on in many new companies. In that spirit, we celebrate Europe’s Most Influential Women in Tech, our inaugural list of female leaders driving digital transformation across the biggest businesses. Curated by Fortune’s Grethe Schepers, the list proudly showcases titans of tech like Sabine Klauke, CTO of Airbus; Barbara Lavernos, deputy CEO at L’Oréal; and Hauke Stars, on the executive board of Volkswagen.
Diageo, the drinks empire behind Guinness, Don Julio, and Johnnie Walker whisky, grew into a global powerhouse through both innovation and smart acquisitions. In the first of her series of features on European companies that have grown global brands, Prarthana Prakash reveals Diageo’s fascinating history and the strategies it used to take on the world’s biggest drink companies.
This issue also features a special package of stories to help you navigate the Trump presidency and what it could mean for global business. With the threat of tariffs looming, 2025 may just call for a stiff drink.
Alex Wood Morton
Executive Editor, Europe, Fortune
@alexwoodmorton
This article appears in the February/March 2025 issue of Fortune with the headline “A Cautionary Tale for Europe”.
