How Novo Nordisk’s profits are reshaping global health funding

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is throwing its weight around.

The world’s wealthiest philanthropic foundation, NNF, holds the controlling interest in the pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk A/S, which has built a fortune on diabetes and weight-loss drugs.

That allowed the Denmark-based foundation to increase its grantmaking from almost 3.9 billion Danish krone in 2018 to nearly DKK10.1 billion in 2024. And the foundation started 2026 with its largest donation so far, committing up to $860 million to the BioInnovation Institute in Denmark to support European innovation and job creation.

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