Novo Nordisk joins fight against diabetes epidemic in cities

Novo Nordisk joins fight against diabetes epidemic in cities

By Andrew Ward, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent

Novo Nordisk is to team up with some of the world’s biggest cities to find ways of tackling diabetes, amid warnings that the disease threatens a global “emergency” among growing urban populations.

The move illustrates how the Danish insulin maker is attempting to work with policymakers to fight diabetes, even as its business benefits from rising incidence of the disease. The initiative is to be announced in Mexico City on Friday.

Lars Sørensen, chief executive, said the global shift towards urban living was accelerating the diabetes epidemic because of the higher levels of obesity typically found in cities compared with rural areas.

Novo Nordisk said it would soon announce cities in North America, Europe and Asia that would join Mexico City in a partnership to assess the scale of the problem and come up with policy and planning measures to address it.

There are an estimated 382m diabetics in the world – more than the population of the US – and two in three of them live in cities, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

The number is forecast to rise to more than half a billion by 2035, with much of the growth coming in developing countries such as China and India as increasing wealth and urbanisation leads to more sedentary lives and unhealthy diets.

One study estimated that large Chinese cities had seven times the levels of obesity as rural villages, while another found that Indian men were 11 per cent fatter a decade after moving to a city from the countryside.

“The global diabetes epidemic is an emergency in slow motion,” said Mr Sørensen. “While there are many factors fuelling the growth trajectory of diabetes, the most striking contributor is urbanisation and the growth of cities.

More than half the world’s population lives in cities and this is forecast to rise to 70 per cent by 2050, according to the United Nations.

Mr Sørensen said urban planners could learn from Novo Nordisk’s native Copenhagen, where extensive bicycle lanes help promote healthy lifestyles.

But he insisted the project – developed with University College London and the Steno diabetes centre in Denmark – was more than just good corporate citizenship of the kind favoured in Scandinavia.

“If we work with policymakers and health officials to help them tackle the disease, it builds a relationship of trust that is good for our business and shareholders in the long run,” he told the Financial Times.

Novo Nordisk is the world’s biggest insulin producer and, last year, derived more than three-quarters of its revenues from diabetes-care products.

Armando Ahued Ortega, minister of health for Mexico City, said he hoped the partnership would help cities to develop an “integrated response to tackle this public health emergency”.

Diabetes is the biggest cause of death in Mexico as a whole and the problem is especially acute in the capital, home to 20m people.