Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen was born in 1966 and trained at Aarhus School of Business before joining Novo Nordisk in 1991. He held a series of senior commercial and strategic roles before being named chief executive in 2017.
His tenure has coincided with the global emergence of the company's GLP-1 portfolio — including semaglutide, marketed as Ozempic and Wegovy — as one of the most commercially and clinically significant drug categories of the decade, with implications spanning diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and broader metabolic health.
Under his leadership Novo Nordisk has become the most valuable company listed in Europe and a defining example of the structural value created by sustained, multi-decade scientific focus.