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If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed.
Hundreds killed, but even now we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ozempic's maker is being weighed down by competition and pricing.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
One of the biggest threats to energy security is how easy it is to get critical minerals, and Spain's, another country that might ban social media for under-16s.
So shares in the maker of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, dropped 17 today after it warned of a decline in sales this year.
The firm says its outlook was hit by fierce competition and the expiry of patents on the active ingredients in its Wegovi and Ozempic drugs in some markets.
Novo has lost two thirds of its stock market value since June 2024, a fall of more than 400 billion.
I spoke to Novo Nordisk's Chief Financial Officer, Carson Knudsen, who told me that generic competition will start to hit in key markets this year.
Our patent expires in India in a few months' time, and it also does so in China.
In China though, there are certain regulatory complications or technicalities.
That means that I don't expect biosimilars to enter the market until 27, whereas in India there will be competition.
So what we've been out saying is that we expect a 2 impact on group sales for this year, linked to a generic impact in a few international operations markets.
I guess, if patients can buy much cheaper versions of Ozempic or Wegovi in different countries, why should they stay with Novo?
What do you offer that the copycats don't?
First and foremost, we offer branded, FDA-approved GLP-1s that patients trust and have been using for years.
But of course with price competition and conversion in pharmacies and the like, there will be a price competition.
So we will also be having tactics, including launching second brands of semi-glutide at different price points.
So we are going also head to head on pricing with the generic entrance.
You've cut prices in the US and that's to expand access, isn't it?
But it is hitting profits.
So how much further can prices realistically fall before the economics stop working for you?
So the reason why we drop pricing is partially due to the agreement with the administration under MFN and cash pricing for patients.
But then also just looking at the obesity markets and what we see in obesity is that the majority of the obesity market at a global scale is the self-pay market.
So it's out of pocket for patients.
And, as a consequence, we need to find the appropriate price points that balances patient affordability with the value our products are bringing.
And now we've been adjusting our prices.
And what we see is a very, very significant product uptake, with the Vigovi pill in the US, as I mentioned before, but also Vigovi injectable.
There we also see very significant uptake over the last few weeks.
Listening to that is Ross Mould, Investment Director at AJ Bell, who joins me now.
Ross, as an investor, what's your assessment of all this?
In some ways, Liana, this is just really how capitalism should work.
If a company does a brilliant job, makes lots of money, makes high returns on capital, it should attract more competition.
And that competition will try and get its piece of the action.
And that's exactly what's happening with Eli Lilly of America is caught up.
It's actually overtaken Nova in terms of market share in the USA with rival products and is even now looking to perhaps take a lead in terms of products with a new oral version of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, one pending American regulatory approval, perhaps sometime this year.
It's interesting Eli Lilly had its outlook out too, but its outlook is just far better.
I mean, Novo had its own oral pill as well, but what is it about Eli Lilly?
That's doing a lot better than Novo.
I think to a degree newer products are perhaps less generic risk.
Again, it may have a lead in the oral pill situation.
So it's now actually forecasting a one quarter rise in its sales in 2026, whereas Novo Nordic is in a worse case.
And I was looking at a drop perhaps of around an eighth.
Do you think it'll ever get back to 2024 levels?
There's a long way back.
I mean.
Novo Nordic shares are actually now back where they were in summer 2021, before the GLP-1 drug mania really began.
So there is much work to be done.
All right.
Well, let's hear a little bit more from Carson Knusen.
I was quite interested in whether being the first in the market made a difference, especially when you then end up with so much competition nipping at your heels.
So here's what Carson Knusen told me.
We like competition because competition makes us sharper, both commercially and on the innovation side.
What is challenging from a New North perspective is that the obesity market has characteristics that are very dissimilar to most other categories in pharmaceuticals and, for sure, compared to diabetes.
Because it's a self-pay market, the dynamics are very, very different on many fronts distribution channels, etc.
We're learning a lot and you can say yes, to some extent we are paving the way for our competitors, or our competitors, they learn from us.
But there are also a lot of advantages by being first movers.
I think, you know, with our GLP-1s, everybody knows Ozempic and Diabetes, and most people know about Vigovi and the Vigovi pill.
So the brand recognition and defining the market, I think carries a lot of benefits by being the first mover.
That was Novo Nordisk's Chief Financial Officer, Carsten Knusen.
The availability of critical minerals poses a huge challenge to energy security.
The International Energy Agency has told the BBC.
That's because the switch to renewables means the focus is on increasingly like things like copper and lithium, rather than oil and gas.
The head of the IEA's Critical Minerals Division, Tae Yoon Kim, says countries must cooperate to guarantee a fair distribution of materials like lithium and rare earth elements.
There are some growing questions about whether the future supplies can keep up, keep pace with rising demand.
We see some progress has been made in recent years.
Investment in critical materials is increasing, but the same cannot be said for diversification.
If their supply is disrupted, their economic impact can be very huge.
So we are estimating over 4 trillion of impact in every year if there are some supply disruptions, which is why we need to pay more attention to the potential economic impact of the supply disruption and make some effort to mitigate those economic risks.
That was the head of the IEA's Critical Minerals Division, Tae Yoon Kim.
Spain is moving to ban social media for under-16s, joining a growing number of countries trying to tighten the rules around kids online.
The proposal still needs approval from Parliament, but it would also make tech company executives personally responsible for harming or illegal content on their platforms.
Australia was the first to introduce a nationwide ban last year, and now countries like France, Denmark and Austria are weighing up similar age limits.
The United States has renewed an agreement that gives 32 African countries duty-free access to the US market.
The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act was allowed to expire last September after 25 years.
It's now been reauthorized until the end of this year.
Namsa Maseko is in Johannesburg.
The trade pact has been extended to 2026, but is far less ambitious than what African heads of state were hoping for.
Before it expired last year, the agreement granted eligible African countries, including South Africa, duty-free access to the world's biggest economy.
It's unclear if South Africa's eligibility is guaranteed after President Trump slapped the country in with a 30 tariff hike.
That was Namsa Maseko in Johannesburg.
Still with me, Ross Mould.
Here's an interesting one, Ross.
PepsiCo is to cut the prices of some of its snack products in the US for various interesting reasons.
Well, one of them is that it's talking about GLP-1 weight loss drugs, shrinking people's appetites and persuading them to look for different types of snacks.
So that's one of the big reasons.
But they also talk about weak consumer confidence and inflation, particularly hitting middle and low income families.
So they're trying to do something to help them, particularly with their potato chips and crisps.
Well, let's go back to the GLP-1.
So start where we, you know, we started with this, we're going to finish with that.
If the prices go down, the people just they're not hungry.
Then, you know, is that actually going to make a difference?
I'm not sure it'll make a difference to that particular portion of the American population who aren't eating as much.
It may help those who are on tighter incomes.
But we've seen Gregg's, the snack chain, high street snack chain here in the UK talk of a similar situation, actually about cutting its portions and again changing its menu.
There you go, Ross Mould.
I was going to make a joke about price elasticity and price waistbands or something.
I'll leave that to you.
I'm not that smart.
Ross Mould, Investment Director at AJ Bell.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining us.
That is it from World Business Express with me, Leanna Byrne.
Thanks for listening.
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.
But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
