The company will communicate details on pricing and availability when it launches, it told Reuters in a statement. Novo
said in March it would initially target Chinese patients willing to pay out-of-pocket for the weekly injectable drug.
Raffles Hospital Beijing, a major hospital in the Chinese capital, might place an order around September, but concrete timing is uncertain, Rose Niu Wei, a marketing manager at the private hospital, told Reuters.
By 1000 GMT on Tuesday Novo’s shares were up 1.5%, having earlier touched record highs that valued the company at nearly $490 billion.
The number of overweight adults in China, the world’s second most populous country, is projected to reach 540 million by 2030, 2.8 times higher than 2000 levels, a Chinese public health study showed in 2020. Numbers who are obese are seen jumping 7.5 times to 150 million.