Why isn’t the £6bn Danish town behind Wegovy diet pills booming?

Kalundborg is a small city of 16,000 folks on the Danish coast, about an hour’s drive from Copenhagen, and is the closest you will get to a contemporary gold rush city.

It’s the essential manufacturing middle for the burden loss drug Wegovy. Semaglutide, for Wegovy and the diabetes drug Ozempic are both made in factories heredad or mum firm Novo Nordisk has invested greater than $8.5bn (£6.5bn) within the city. That is virtually the whole gross home product of Monaco.

However convincing folks to truly stay within the city could be tough.

There may be one Workers and builders flock to factories There are heavy footfalls within the morning and huge exodus within the afternoon – locals name it the “new queue” and advise avoiding the city’s roads at these occasions of the day.

Few staff stay – they stay exterior and drive in.

So what’s to not like when funding reaches £400,000 per resident?

Behind the optimistic numbers, Kalundborg faces many challenges, from dilapidated colleges and low incomes to many kids being chubby.

Danish and maths scores in public colleges listed here are under the nationwide common. Some areas on the outskirts of city have few services inside and out of doors, with solely previous swings on the playground.

“For those who noticed this, you’ll select a giant metropolis close to right here and say, ‘Effectively, we’ll stay there after which I can drive to Kalundborg and go to work,'” district councilor Heller Laursen · Peterson instructed me.

She stated the colleges have been struggling to draw skilled lecturers, which had led to decrease expectations amongst many mother and father.

In spite of everything, she stated, they assumed their kids would all the time discover jobs at Novo Nordisk crops, so why hassle going to school?

Ali, Anna Okay, Anna and Marie attended the Gymnasium, probably the most educational secondary college within the space, and instructed me they needed to depart right here to review.

“It’d get fascinating later, however for now I believe it is a bit too boring to stay right here – I believe I desire a greater metropolis,” says Anna Okay.

However Ali and Mary are much more excited to return from college and hope there will likely be extra job alternatives within the city to allow them to benefit from the pure magnificence extra.

In the meantime, Brian Sonder Anderson, who runs the Blue Angel cinema and heads the native merchants’ affiliation, famous that native supermarkets and bakeries are booming as manufacturing facility staff flock to them throughout their lunch breaks .

However different shops, corresponding to these promoting footwear and garments, opened shortly after which closed because of the variety of staff dwelling elsewhere.

Many low-income households stay right here, removed from the capital Copenhagen, the place rents and home costs have soared, leaving some households depending on welfare and others on manufacturing facility jobs.

Kalundborg additionally has well being issues – it’s within the prime 5% of Danish cities with the best proportion of chubby kids.

On the identical time, Novo Nordisk Now the most valuable company in Europe Revenues topped $33 billion final yr, giving it a market capitalization of greater than $500 billion.

The funding within the city is geared toward including 1,250 jobs to the Kalundborg web site’s current 4,500 staff and rising manufacturing of its best-selling medicines. Whereas the corporate accounts for about 1% of Denmark’s workforce, it accounts for a a lot bigger share of its progress.

Within the first 9 months of 2023, the Danish financial system grew by 1.1%. Some analysts have warned that components of the nation’s financial system might turn into overly reliant on the pharmaceutical trade.

The city’s mayor, Martin Damm, is optimistic, insisting that greater than 1,000 new jobs are created yearly and that some younger persons are pleased to name the realm house.

“In Europe, persons are shifting from rural areas to massive cities, nevertheless it’s the alternative,” he stated.

“That is this small city [that] entice massive investments.

He additionally insisted that colleges have been being renovated or already had good services and that rising prosperity would finally result in more healthy existence.

Miguel, an 18-year-old scholar from Madrid who’s learning a brand new college course in biotechnology on the town, has simply joined a neighborhood soccer workforce with gamers from Brazil, Mexico, Poland and Ukraine.

“There are quite a lot of worldwide folks on this city, and virtually everybody I spoke to in English responded in English,” he stated.

Amanda, from Brazil, insists the chance is right here – she has discovered a job inserting her two younger kids in a neighborhood college and hopes they are going to keep right here to attend college.

A brand new motorway can be being constructed to assist ease the city’s continual congestion issues, however getting folks to stay right here is the true answer.

College students on the liberal arts college imagine the city is at a crossroads.

“5 years from now, I believe this city [will have] Rising up rather a lot – I wish to be a multicultural city,” Anna Okay.

“If that is the case, I would contemplate going again.”