Novo Nordisk Gets US Approval for Wegovy Obesity Pill 

0:01Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcast Radio News. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Well, we talked about how Nova Nordisk is one of the big movers today in early trading. The president and CEO of The Drug Maker says the company is going all in on weight loss drugs as his company is the first to come out with a pill to be sold in the U.S. market. He spoke with our Katie Greifeld earlier today. This is really going to be super exciting for the millions of patients that have been waiting to get their hands on a GLP-1 pill.

0:49And for the first time, we are having a pill that has an efficacy of some 17 percent if you take the pill regularly. And one in three people are going to actually reduce up to 20 percent weight loss. I think that data speaks for itself. And we are super excited, of course, to be the first to the market. And we're going to go all in trying to make this a huge success. Well, moving forward, I mean, beyond just these first few months after Eli Lilly does have their pill on the market, how do you plan to compete? What is your strategy there, given my understanding is that there's likely going to be no restrictions when it comes to food, when it comes to drinks around Lilly's version?

1:31Yeah. So as I mentioned, there are no other phase three trials of oral GOP one that has shown this level efficacy. This means that for the first time ever, people do not have compromise between either taking an efficacious injection or a convenient pill. For the first time ever, you have the same efficacy of 17 % in injection or a pill. You can take it on a daily basis as a pill or a weekly injection. And that, I think, is the key selling point with WeGoV pill. We also have more than 10 years of, of course, experience with regards to safety data and what have you. That's why it's called the Vigovie pill, which means that this pill is not only going to reduce your weight.

2:17It also has protection for your cardiovascular systems. So this is a phenomenal pill, second to none, I would say. And we are very ready to compete with it. Let's talk about how you're going to sell it. Through what channels will you sell this Vigovie pill? And will all of those channels be available at launch? The quick answer is yes. We're going all in. We're, of course, going to sell this through our own websites, Novocare Pharmacy, as well as all of our partners, Be it Rowe, Life MD, Costco, Weight Watchers. Everyone that you can imagine is going to start launching this at the same time on the day of the launch.

2:57TrumpRx, of course, will be coming up soon as well, as well as, of course, the traditional channels that usually medicine is procured in U.S. All right. That was the CEO of Novo Nordisk. Let's bring in John Tazi now. He's a Bloomberg health care reporter on this milestone for the Swiss drug maker, because Novo Nordisk was the first mover here when it comes to the obesity treatments, but it quickly lost its lead to Eli Lilly. Does this put it back in the lead again? Yeah. I mean, so for the Danish drug maker, I believe it's... Danish. Yeah, no, I think it is, listen, it is a milestone for sure.

3:36You know, patients have been waiting for an oral version of these weight loss drugs. This is the first pill to get approval in the United States. Eli Lilly is not far behind. They've said they expect their pill to be, pill version of their weight loss drug, Zep bound, to be approved as soon as March, potentially in the US. So, you know, I think it's still quite a competitive space, but this is still certainly a milestone for Novo Nordisk. So I would think that this would be kind of a step function in demand for the industry to have these oral products available, because I'm guessing there's just a bunch of people out there that don't like to get injections and that's a nonstarter for them.

4:20What's the expectation what this could do for the marketplace when we get more and more of these oral pills? Yeah, I mean, Novonorz's CEO certainly said that they expect this to expand the market. I think we'll know pretty soon, right? Whether, you know, I mean, first of all, the question of how many people currently using the injection convert to the pill form and how many new people start who have been reluctant for whatever reason to take the injection, you know, whether it changes things like adherence. We know with these drugs that there have been, you know, questions about how long people stay on the medications and whether they go on and off because of some side effects.

4:57So, you know, I think it is, you know, potentially likely to expand demand, but we'll see. We'll see. And I remember Novo had a, what they call the next gen treatment, Cagri Semi, which didn't do well. And that tanked the stock. And it's partly why the stock has fallen by about half this year. Is that kind of an experiment that just went off the rails? and this was always kind of in the offing? I mean, I think, you know, companies have been looking for an oral GLP-1 weight loss drug, you know, for years. I think this has been a goal of the market. I mean, there is an oral pill for the diabetes indication.

5:41There we go. Sorry. All right, that's good. I mean, I think this will just be big for a lot of folks, and hopefully the cost will continue to come down and that will make it available for more and more people. John Tassi, healthcare reporter of Bloomberg News. Thanks so much for joining us here. Again, a good day for Novo Nordisk. We'll have more coming up. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.

6:15All right, here's a story that kind of caught me by surprise. I just wasn't on my radar screen. Saks mulls bankruptcy year after raising billions for a turnaround. When did that happen? I know they'd been having problems with paying off their debt and just kind of trying to restructure everything. But this has been like a slow-moving train wreck. I mean, it's a phenomenal brand here. But let's get to the latest reporting on this. Rashmi Basu joins us here, Bloomberg News credit reporter. So, Rashmi, what's going on with our friends at Saks? Saks is running out of money. And over the weekend, we saw some lenders enter into confidential discussions to discuss the company's new money needs.

6:54And what are the options on the table at this point? A Chapter 11 is a possibility, given that the company is running out of cash. It's been having issues with its suppliers. So right now, everyone's kind of scrambling to figure out how to salvage the company. So talk to us about what they've been doing over the last several years and trying to stave this off and maybe raise some other capital. What's been the recent past like for this company? Well, Saks has always had some issues with its vendors. And in late 2024, they decided to partner up with Neiman Marcus in a$2.7 billion deal. But the integration has not been going great.

7:33And the company is still struggling with negative EBITDA, dealing with late payments to vendors. So it's just been having a lot of issues, a lot of pressure points coming all together at once right before the holidays. Who are the investors that have a lot at stake in this debt situation for Saks? Yeah, it's a lot of, you know, the Wall Street lenders that are involved in this name. And they've just seen, you know, they're having a really tough time right now with like first brands, etc. So they're seeing, you know, in Saks, we're now seeing the debt trading in like the single digits. How much debt do they have outstanding?

8:10So they have more than two. They did a$2.2 billion deal. And on top of that, they did rescue financing back in August, which added another like$600 million. So this is real money for the banks are on the hook for. Yeah, this is a lot. This is a lot of pain that's going to be going around. Wow. So how do you see this shaping up? What will you be looking for in 2026 as this continues to be a story where Sachs is working with creditors trying to persuade them to, you know, pitch in more or restructure their existing agreements? Right. We'll be looking to see how the company and its lenders are going to structure the new money raise, whether or not that's going to take the form of a bankruptcy loan or a dip.

8:58And we'll also be looking to see who's ultimately going to take the keys, if we're going to see a change of control and if lenders are going to assume control of the company. We're looking to be seeing whether or not we see Sachs and Neiman kind of separate from each other. I mean, boy, some of this is brutal here. So they have an interest payment,$100 million due like December 30th,$941 million portion of sex, second out notes, not sure what a second out note is. And I've been in that business a long time. Trades for seven and a half cents on the dollar. That's just stress level. Oh, yeah. And about 762 million of more senior debt was quoted $0.48.

9:40So the market's telling you. Yeah, the market's saying that there's not a lot of value here. Saks and Neiman Marcus were kind of known for their real estate value. But what we're seeing is that's really maybe not the case. So that's something that's going to be deliberated over the next coming weeks. How much is that real estate worth? How much is the company's name worth? Rajmeen, let me ask you a question, because I know a lot of our listeners are Amex Platinum cardholders, which means they get a$50 credit at Saks every six months, and they'll be going into the stores to use that. Does this affect the operations on the ground?

10:13Will customers see any difference when they go into Saks Fifth Avenue? Well, I mean, right now we're seeing a ton of promotions taking place right now, and that's something that we've seen in retail for years now, a very promotional environment. So there's going to be a lot of discounts out there. Are there other sex type stories out there that you're monitoring that a name that could be a real credit problem? Credit problem, maybe container stores, one that we are kind of taking, keeping an eye out. They filed for bankruptcy. They exited. But there is, you know, we're seeing a lot of discounts taking place there as well.

10:48But this feels very different from, you know, the problems that first brands or tricolore had, which kind of came from out of nowhere. This feels, I was saying to Paul, like a slow moving train wreck. We've known about these problems at Saks, at Container Store for a while, and it's a matter of just the two sides working it out. Right. Like Saks and Neiman, the integration has just gone so wrong in so many ways, and it's really not capturing the synergies that maybe lenders had initially hoped for when they did the deal. Is there a call maybe for just a new management team that kind of come in there?

11:17If there is, in fact, a reorganization here or a filing? I mean, we could definitely see lenders taking control of the company and installing their own. people. All right. Rashmi, thanks so much. Appreciate that. That was a story I was not aware of. Rashmi Basu, she's a credit reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. And if you bring somebody in here and you say, oh my gosh, is this a trend? And what do we hear with first brands and three? No, it is idiosyncratic. Right, right. Yes. Or one-off. Well, and that really shocked people because it felt like it came from out of nowhere.

11:52They didn't have a sense that this was happening. Clearly, the integration with Neiman Marcus has been kind of troubling. So people had a sense that this was not going so well. And we know that the department stores as a whole just don't have a business model that resonates with younger consumers. Yep, absolutely. And if you don't have a digital strategy down, then you're just in a world of hurt here. And then it just I think being a former banker, what this screams to me is just the capital structure isn't appropriate for the business the way it is today. You can't capital, you can't have that much debt on this type of business.

12:24Maybe you could have a generation ago, but given the economics of the department store business, as you mentioned, it just doesn't feel like this is the right capital structure. So somebody's going to have to pay. And it looks like those junior note holders at seven and a half cents on the dollar, they're going to pay. And even the senior stuff, they're going to pay as well. So stay on top of that story for sure. S &P up 15, the Dow up 80. This is Bloomberg. Good morning.

12:51You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. I've been seeing the Bloomberg reporting all morning about how many gajillions of people are going to be flying this weekend. I mean, it's just crazy. Although I feel like the schedule has changed a little bit. The calendar's changed since COVID because people are able to leave a little bit earlier, work from home, you know, for the few days before the holiday.

13:22Yeah, apparently like yesterday, the day before, was the crazy day. So that just kind of brings you to how are the airlines doing out there? And what's the outlook for 2026 for the airlines here? George Ferguson, Senior Aerospace Defense and Airlines Analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. It says he's on Zoom from the Jersey office. I'm not buying it. I think it's a beach and got a backdrop there. That's CGI. guy. But I look at him. He's in the Princeton office. I am. All right. George, thanks for joining us here. I appreciate you putting the effort there, sir. Talk to us about the airline business.

13:52How healthy is it today and kind of what's the outlook for tomorrow? Because every time I get on a plane, it's packed, dude. It is packed. But remember, you know, those revenue management officers, they don't they don't like to let airplanes go down the runway less than 80 plus percent full anymore. So you need to tell me the price that everybody paid before I get really excited about packed airplanes. Anyways, I'll get off that soapbox right now. Look, I think, you know, as we get into 2026, we're looking at schedules. We're seeing a lot of the growth coming from the big full service carriers.

14:24United especially continues to sort of pour on the gas here and put a lot of capacity in the marketplace. Delta a bit less than them. American even a bit less than them. And as we get into the new year, we're going to have Southwest starting to sell premium seats and everybody's got a plan for bringing more premium seats to the marketplace. So, you know, when we just look at the full service carriers, they're going to grow higher than GDP levels. They're going to be, I mean, actually not the latest GDP number, which is a bit hot, but you're going to see like three, 4 % seat growth in the first half from those big full service carriers, I think that means there's probably a risk premium seats are going to start to feel some pressure on fares.

15:08And that's been, you know, the really big driver of this business, especially for those big full service carriers has been driving their profitability. On the, you know, economy end, we're seeing Spirit Airlines. They're sort of between this world and that world a little bit. We're trying to figure out if they're going to survive, might get bought by Frontier. They've dropped a bunch of airplanes. We're seeing some of these carriers cut capacity because of weakness in those seat prices. So I think we'll start to see at least some, you know, firming up of that basic economy as the market tries to get that back in balance.

15:45So I think that's what we're going to see in first half of the new year. So it sounds like there's going to be a surplus of those premium seats. And then that leaves big empty hole here for the frontiers and the spirits. Are they going to be forced to offer also some kind of premium version of what they currently have on offer? I don't know. I mean, I think everybody's trying to figure out a way to get more premium in their airplane. They're not forced, but they want that premium travel that's going to just keep flying through good and bad economic times and not have the challenges of inflation on their budget and things like that.

16:20So I don't know if they're forced, But we're definitely seeing all of them look at ways to increase the price they can get the customer to pay for a seat, whether it's block a middle seat. You know, so it might be three by three kind of airplane. They might block the middle seat. Some of them are talking about putting, you know, more recline and nicer seats in the front of the airplane. So everybody, I think everybody has a plan for how to get more premium in their airplane. And again, that's going to mean, like everything in the airline business, we'll get offsides on premium before it's all done.

16:51I think it begins in the first half. I don't think premium seat prices are going to crater. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to go anywhere really super cheap flying in front of the airplane in the first half of the next year. But I don't think it would be as good as it was in 2025. Wages. That's a big cost component for these airlines. I want my pilots happy. I want them feeling like they're well paid. um talk to us about the wage the dynamic in the industry yeah i mean look you know we still see you know i don't know that i want to call it a shortage but you know it's a it's a difficult balance between the number of pilots out there and what's needed by the airlines and and the um you know the number of people coming into the industry and getting uh air transport licenses and things like that and so the pilots are still decently paid uh you know they came off years decades ago, they just had many, many bad years.

17:45There was a surplus of them. So they've been catching up and they got these 20 % increases in the last couple of contracts. And in the last contract, we saw a 20 % increase and then a 4%, 5%. So actually it was a couple, it was a five and a couple of fours, but 4 % salary gains increases. They're pretty nice in this economy. And the airlines really can't afford that kind of inflation and their cost base. The pilots are a big part of it. And so they keep rolling out bigger airplanes. And that's another challenge in the marketplace, right? As you put a bigger airplane behind the pilot so you could defray their costs over more seats, you got to fly all those seats into these markets.

18:23And sometimes you're discounting more to fill the airplane. So that's a challenge and continues in the new year. We think the airlines will be managing cost inflation there, maintenance and gates everywhere. So wages, a big part of airlines costs the biggest part, but then fuel is the second biggest or can be. And jet fuel has actually come down in 2025. Is that going to continue to be a tailwind in 2026? So, you know, we kind of we looked at it recently, put it out on the Bloomberg terminal, BI space, AIRLN. We did some scenario analysis on this. Look, I have a hard time seeing fuel prices dip significantly lower than here.

19:03but I am no oil man, right? If I was, I'd own a football team. But I'm no oil man. I don't know necessarily where those prices are going. All I can tell you is if they stick around$2, the airlines will get, the airlines had a nice tailwind from fuel last year. As fuel prices fell, it buffered their margins. If they stick around$2, they probably get a bit of a tailwind in the first quarter. But as they roll into the back part of the year, they're not going to get a lot of gains from fuel. that's not going to buffer their margins. But we'll see. I mean, fuel has dipped below$2. It could stay below$2, I guess, if you see slower GDP growth.

19:42Could be a bit of a buffer, but we don't think as much as in 2025. Did the airlines hedge their fuel exposure? Because, boy, I think I'd be hedging right here if I were a CFO. Not anymore. I think every so often they surprise you. And so I hear what you're saying. You could see one of those crazy CFOs out there going, hey, we might as well hedge here, could be as good as we get. We saw Southwest do that a number of times in their history and win big. But for the most part recently, what we've seen is almost the entire field does not hedge fuel prices anymore. If you think about it, they kind of sell tickets out six, eight weeks.

20:19So they have sort of a future commitment for fuel prices out that far. If fuel prices rise dramatically, I think everybody in the marketplace adjusts fares fairly quickly because they're not edged. And so I think, you know, when they look at the pack that they're flying in, maybe the airlines, they think no one else hedging fuel. I'm not going to run the risk to be wrong in a hedge. We'll stay on hedge. And that's what the U.S. guys do. Hard to stick your neck out. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Unless you think you've got a handle on the market. George Ferguson, thanks so much. Appreciate it. As always, George Ferguson, Senior Aerospace Defense and Airlines Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.

20:52I think I figured out, George, he's in the office today. But then I bet you a bunch of them are going to run around noon, and bag out and go to the Tiger's Tale. But he's done his work for the day. Yeah, but they're going to go to the Tiger's Tale and have a little holiday lunch there. And you wish you were there with them. Exactly. It's a great, great spot there right around the Bloomberg offices down there in Princeton. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

21:16You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Let's head over now to Washington, D.C. and check in with Nathan Dean. He is Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Policy Analyst to kind of wrap up the year that was in 2025 and look ahead to 2026, because you can't overstate just how much of an influence politics and policy had on the markets this year. Clients actually demand access to Nathan Dean, and his notes get huge readership because politics definitely impacts investments.

21:57And you just look at the crypto space, for instance. Look at the financial space, the banking space. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today on the eve of Christmas Eve. Which industry saw the biggest impact, for better or for worse, from policy? So obviously, I think the first thing to do is look at President Trump's one big, beautiful bill, and really, that's clean energy. You know, we saw a lot of the tax credits curtailed in terms of just both solar and wind. Both industries are really significantly being felt in terms of, you know, those actions. I would also say is there's a lot of sentiment out there in terms of crypto and financial services, like you just said.

22:32But 2026 is going to bring even more deregulation for those two sectors. And that's why we think for 2026, crypto and financial services in particular are going to see quite a benefit. Just in the banking space, for example, you know, back in the napkin math, because we haven't seen some proposals that haven't come out yet. We're estimating around 73 to 75 billion dollars in capital to be returned to the big banks. So think of Bank America, JP Morgan and Citigroup. And then in the crypto space, obviously, you know, we have some stablecoin legislation passed that is now going to be implemented in 2026.

23:04But also we see Congress debating this crypto market structure bill, which we think is a 70 percent chance of success passing in the first half of next year, which would then bring regulatory clarity for firms like Coinbase and Robinhood. It's also an election year in 2026. How does that impact how legislation gets passed or doesn't pass? How's that work? Yeah. So, you know, for 2026, every day that all 435 members of the House and 33 members of the Senate are here, it's a day that their opponent is back home campaigning against them. And look, they don't want to be here. So we're telling our clients is that legislation is going to be very difficult to come by in 2026.

23:41Now, the Republicans want to have another bite of what's called the reconciliation apple. This is essentially the one big, beautiful bill pathway again. So think of this is going to be more health care related. We're somewhat bearish on this just because the margins of the House of Representatives are pretty thin right now. And look, if it was easy, they would have already done it, they being the Republicans. But there are some other bills out there, like I mentioned, the crypto bill. But 2026 is a story about deregulation because regulators live here. They don't go home and they're going to be working on these rules.

24:10And it's also a story of tariffs because we do anticipate that the Supreme Court in January is most likely going to say that President Trump's EIPA tariffs are unlawful. And then the Trump administration is going to have to figure out another way to implement these tariffs, because just as of this morning, President Trump said that these are really good things for the nation. Yeah, that's going to be something we're going to really focus in on in 2026. If the Supreme Court does rule against the president, what does that mean for the efforts by importers to claim a refund or to try to get back some of that money?