The weight loss drug Wegovy contributed to the city’s prosperity. So why is it so neglected?

Kalundborg, a city of just 16,000 people on the Danish coast, an hour’s drive from Copenhagen, is as close to a modern gold rush town as you can get.

It is the main production center for the weight loss drug Wegovy. Semaglutide, used in The local factory produces Wegovy and the antidiabetic drug Ozempicand parent company Novo Nordisk have invested over $8.5 billion (£6.5 billion) in the city. This is almost the entire GDP of Monaco.

However, convincing people to actually live in the city may prove difficult.

Is influx of workers and builders to the factory in the morning and exodus in the afternoon – locals call it the “Novo railway” and recommend avoiding the city road every day during these hours.

Almost none of the workers stay – they live outside and commute home.

So with £400,000 worth of investment per capita, what’s not to like?

Behind the pink characters, Kalundborg faces many challenges, from failing schools and low incomes to the fact that many children are overweight.

Grades in state schools in Danish and mathematics are below the national average. Some on the outskirts of town have few indoor or outdoor amenities, with only old swings on the playground.

“If you see this, you’ll take one of the big towns in the area and say, ‘Well, we’ll live there and then I can go to Kalundborg to work,’” regional councilor Helle Laursen Petersen tells me.

She says these schools struggle to attract experienced teachers, which fuels low expectations among many parents.

After all, he says, they think their children will always find a job at the Novo Nordisk factory, so why bother trying to get into university?

Ali, Anna K, Anna and Marie from Gymnasium, the most academic high school in the area, tell me they want to go away to college.

“It might get interesting later, but for now it’s a bit too boring to settle down here. I would prefer a bigger city,” says Anna K.

However, Ali and Marie are more excited to return after their studies and hope to find more job opportunities in the city so that they can better enjoy its natural beauty.

Meanwhile, Brian Sonder Anderson, who runs the Blue Angel cinema and is president of the local traders’ association, points out that supermarkets and bakeries are booming locally because factory workers flock to them on their lunch breaks.

However, other stores, such as those selling shoes and clothes, are opening quickly and then closing again due to the number of workers living elsewhere.

Many low-income families live here, with prices higher than in the capital Copenhagen, where rents and property prices have skyrocketed – with some remaining on benefits and others reliant on factory work.

Kalundborg also has health problems – it is located in the 5% of Danish cities with the most overweight children.

Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk is here currently the most valuable company in Europe with revenue last year exceeding $33 billion, meaning its market value exceeded $500 billion.

The investment in the city is intended to create 1,250 jobs compared to the existing 4,500 employees of the factory in Kalundborg and to increase the production of best-selling medicines. Although the company represents about 1% of the Danish workforce, it accounts for most of its growth.

Denmark’s economic growth was 1.1% in the first nine months of 2023. However, if we remove the pharmaceutical sector, dominated by Novo, the economy shrank by 0.8%. Some analysts warn that there is a risk of excessive dependence of part of the country’s economy on the pharmaceutical industry.

The city’s mayor, Martin Damm, is optimistic and claims that more than 1,000 new jobs are created here every year, and some young people are happy to call this place their home.

“In Europe, people are migrating from rural areas to big cities, and it’s happening in the opposite direction,” he says.

“This small town attracts big investments.”

He also insists that schools should be renovated or already well equipped, and that increasing prosperity will lead to healthier lifestyles over time.

Miguel, an 18-year-old student from Madrid studying biotechnology at one of the city’s new university courses, has just joined a local soccer team consisting of players from Brazil, Mexico, Poland and Ukraine.

“There are many people from all over the world in this city, and almost everyone I spoke to in English responded in English,” he says.

Amanda from Brazil says there are plenty of opportunities here – she has found a job, placed her two young children in a local school and hopes they will stay here for university.

A new highway is also being built to help ease the city’s chronic congestion, but the real solution to this problem will be to get people to live here.

Junior high school students believe that the city is at a crossroads.

“I think that within five years the city (will) grow significantly – I hope it will be a multicultural city,” says Anna K.

“If that’s the case, I might consider coming back.”