Novo Nordisk: Transforming Diabetes Care Through Digital Innovation

With over 90 years of global history and headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk is a leader in the field of diabetes and a company consistently committed to innovation. In an era where the wave of digital healthcare is sweeping across the globe, what initiatives has Novo Nordisk undertaken? What achievements have been made? And what is its next strategic move? To address these questions, VCBeat was honored to invite Chen Jun, Vice President of Marketing at Novo Nordisk (China) Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., to participate in a VB Group interview. He shared his insights and reflections on digital marketing and digital healthcare, as well as Novo Nordisk’s innovative models and experiences in leveraging digital technologies to transform diabetes care.

From Chen Jun’s perspective, marketing primarily refers to the dissemination of information by enterprises to their target audiences, while digital marketing entails leveraging digital technologies to facilitate such information delivery. Healthcare is reflected in patients’ care pathways and disease management; digital health utilizes digital technologies to better support patients in accessing medical services, managing diseases, and interacting with physicians. Novo Nordisk’s innovative initiatives in China today are predominantly focused on the realm of digital marketing.



Applications of Digital Technology in Pharmaceutical Marketing

Chen Jun introduced that marketing is a core business for pharmaceutical companies and also represents their largest cost expenditure. From a communication perspective, marketing includes product promotion, educating healthcare professionals on treatment concepts, as well as providing patients with disease education and lifestyle guidance.

Pharmaceutical companies primarily utilize three channels for communication: first, academic conferences, which facilitate peer-to-peer information exchange among physicians; second, visits by medical representatives and medical science liaisons to target customers (i.e., physicians) to disseminate academic information; and third, non-personal communication channels. How, then, does digital technology play a role in these three communication pathways?

1. Remote Meeting Mode

First, let us examine the application of digital technologies in academic conferences. Traditional conferences are held offline on a regular annual basis. Depending on their scale, they can be categorized into national, regional, and city-level conferences. While these meetings effectively disseminate academic information, their most significant drawback is that they are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and financially burdensome.

The advantages of remote conferencing precisely offset this drawback of traditional meetings. For instance, we can now join a meeting directly via WeChat on our smartphones, which incurs significantly lower costs than conventional methods. Moreover, remote conferencing is not constrained by the speaker’s geographic location or schedule, thereby addressing the scarcity of speaker resources and enhancing the accessibility of high-profile speakers.

Novo Nordisk has made significant efforts in this regard. For instance, it recently launched the “Angel Loves to Share” educational program for nurses. In this webinar, Novo Nordisk invites a national expert in nursing to deliver a lecture to nurses across China. Under the traditional conference model, such a session would typically reach only a few hundred participants. However, through remote conferencing, it can simultaneously cover hundreds of cities, expanding the audience to over 3,000 people, with a maximum capacity of 5,000–6,000 attendees. Another similar initiative is the “Air Classroom,” which also leverages online platforms to enable a single expert to provide training to primary care physicians from different regions across China—a feat unattainable through traditional offline conferences.

Novo Nordisk also hosts numerous small-scale case discussion sessions, featuring speakers who are experts with nationwide academic influence. The audience consists of primary care physicians from prefecture- and county-level hospitals, typically numbering 15–20 participants. These groups spend one to two hours discussing solutions for complex and challenging cases. This approach can rapidly enhance the clinical diagnostic and treatment capabilities of primary care physicians. Moreover, it is only through such initiatives that China’s top experts can be “brought into” county hospitals with greater frequency and broader reach, enabling in-depth discussions with frontline doctors.

Of course, remote conferences have their limitations, namely the lack of a sense of presence and relatively poor interactivity. However, in Chen Jun’s view, these shortcomings are not insurmountable. For instance, the small-scale case discussion meetings mentioned above demonstrated strong interactivity. From this, we can draw an important lesson on enhancing engagement in remote conferences: appropriately limit the number of attendees to allow sufficient time for each participant to communicate with the speaker. Secondly, invite speakers who excel in both academic expertise and presentation skills, using the academic rigor and vividness of their content to compensate for the lack of physical presence. Thirdly, continuously improve the technical platforms and operational processes for remote conferences to ensure smooth execution during the event.

Digital platforms can also be applied to offline conferences to enhance their effectiveness. For instance, since the vast majority of physicians now routinely use WeChat, conference invitations, check-ins, and access to meeting materials can all be facilitated through the platform. During the event, attendees can interact with speakers and ask questions via WeChat, while post-conference surveys can be distributed through the same channel to gather further feedback from participants.

2. Non-Interpersonal Communication Channels

Chen Jun introduced that non-interpersonal communication primarily refers to dissemination through media channels, including both traditional and new media. New media platforms such as PC-based websites, mobile phones, and mobile apps represent highly efficient communication methods. In China, Novo Nordisk has established two websites and three WeChat official accounts targeting diverse audiences, including physicians, nurses, patients, and the general public. These online platforms rank among the top in the diabetes field in terms of user base, page views, and article reads, having become the “mainstay” of the company’s patient and healthcare professional education system. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk also collaborates with suitable third-party media platforms, such as DXY (Dingxiang Yuan) and Medical Realm (Yixuejie), to complement its own platforms.

In the new media era, videos have played an increasingly significant role. On video platforms such as Youku and Tudou, we can find high-quality educational videos on chronic diseases, each reaching millions of viewers. Novo Nordisk also collaborates with third parties annually to produce educational videos on diabetes and insulin therapy. By using accessible language and approaches to communicate with patients and the public, these videos enhance disease awareness and reach audiences in the millions—a scale that traditional offline education and communication channels struggle to match.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is also being applied to surgical training and education. However, in Chen Jun’s view, this is related to the inherent characteristics of surgery itself, as junior doctors need to observe simulated surgeries to enhance their clinical diagnostic and treatment capabilities. In contrast, the application of similar technologies in the fields of diabetes or internal medicine is relatively limited. One potential scenario for exploration is using VR technology to allow patients to simulate the experience of hypoglycemia, thereby gaining a more vivid understanding of its risks and improving their disease awareness.

“3D"Model: Application of Digital Technology in Diabetes Management"

Digital healthcare is centered on healthcare professionals and patients, enabling them to seek medical care and manage diseases in a more effective manner. To achieve this goal, various digital approaches are being explored. Chen Jun believes that the application of digital healthcare will be more prevalent in chronic disease management. Taking diabetes management as an example, Chen Jun has summarized a “3D” model, namely: Drug, Data, and Device.

First, in chronic disease management, medication is a core component of the overall disease management process. In addition to medication, factors such as diet and exercise can be input as part of the patient’s health data. The output data consists of blood glucose levels and other health indicators related to diabetes.

Mobile healthcare integrates medication data, lifestyle-related dietary and exercise data, and health metrics such as blood glucose levels onto a single platform. By consolidating both input and output data on one platform, adjustments can be made based on this information to guide patients toward better blood glucose control.

An indispensable component of this ecosystem is the medical device. In the past two years, a wave of mobile internet startups has emerged in China, with many focusing on chronic disease management. It is reported that there are over 100 apps dedicated to diabetes management, a phenomenon dubbed the “Hundred Sugar Wars.” These apps offer largely similar functionalities, such as data entry and management. However, requiring patients to manually input various types of data results in poor user experience and low adherence. Therefore, automatic data uploading is preferred, making automated devices a critical component of future chronic disease management.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence can be leveraged to assist patients and healthcare providers in disease intervention. We may posit a bold hypothesis: imagine if AlphaGo were transformed into a “super doctor.” Possessing exceptional learning capabilities and eidetic memory, it could rapidly digest the entire body of medical literature within a given field and accumulate clinical expertise by analyzing numerous patient cases. Moreover, such an “AlphaGo Doctor” is replicable. Deploying a cohort of these super doctors could help elevate diagnostic and therapeutic standards in remote areas, enhance the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery, and ultimately empower patients to achieve better disease management.

Of course, this is an idealized scenario. Regardless of how advanced AI-driven physicians may become, the realization of the aforementioned goals still hinges on the richness and quality of available data. For instance, regarding blood glucose monitoring, current reimbursement policies in China only cover tests conducted in hospitals, while out-of-pocket expenses for home-based testing are not reimbursed. Consequently, many patients struggle to maintain consistent monitoring, resulting in fragmented and ineffective data. Currently, numerous large global pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, including Novo Nordisk, are actively collaborating with high-tech firms to identify models that can enhance data integrity and promote the application of digital health solutions in chronic disease management.

Regarding existing mobile applications for diabetes management, Chen Jun believes that most business or revenue models remain unclear. “Some may be considering future integration with e-commerce platforms or the involvement of insurance companies, but these efforts are still in an early exploratory phase and some distance away from establishing viable business models.”

Interactive Session

Q: Will Novo Nordisk choose to collaborate with third-party platforms for patient and physician education? What services does Novo Nordisk hope to obtain through these third-party platforms?

Chen Jun:In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. We primarily assess our own needs, what we can and cannot currently achieve, and what third-party platforms can supplement. Novo Nordisk has consistently collaborated with third-party channels, such as in video production and distribution. If third-party channels deliver better communication outcomes than our owned channels and complement our resources, we are certainly more inclined to partner with them.

Furthermore, we evaluate whether the target audience of third-party platforms consists of diabetes patients and assess the extent of their population coverage. Based on the characteristics of different patient groups, we then design tailored patient education strategies to maximize effectiveness.

Q:Why Are Pharmaceutical Companies Shifting More Effort and Investment Toward Patient Education, When Their Focus Was Previously on Physician Education?

Chen Jun:Whether the focus is on enhancing physician education or improving clinicians’ diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities to deliver better services, the ultimate goal remains patient-centered care. Effective management of chronic diseases such as diabetes is unattainable without strong patient cooperation. Well-informed patients demonstrate significantly higher treatment adherence than those who are less informed; therefore, patient education plays a crucial role in improving adherence. In addition to providing accurate disease-related knowledge, enhancing patient adherence can also be achieved through innovations in medications and blood glucose monitoring devices, thereby facilitating more convenient disease management for patients.

Q: How to balance the internet channel marketing model with the traditional model?

Chen Jun:I believe that digital marketing is not replacing traditional sales models, at least for now or in the short term, but rather serving as an effective complement to them. For instance, digital approaches can enhance the efficiency of traditional offline conferences, improve the effectiveness of sales representative visits, and expand the reach of disseminated content.

Q: Will Novo Nordisk develop its own diabetes management solutions?APP？

Chen Jun:Currently, Novo Nordisk operates its own physician education platform, the Tangyi Wang website, along with a corresponding WeChat official account. For patient education, it maintains the Diabetes Network website and its associated WeChat account. Novo Nordisk China has launched a diabetes management app with functionalities similar to existing apps on the market. The decision to develop a proprietary app was driven by the potential for integration with our existing digital platforms for healthcare providers and patients (websites and WeChat), thereby facilitating more effective information dissemination and interaction. Globally, Novo Nordisk has initiated a comprehensive digital health strategy, including establishing a partnership with IBM’s artificial intelligence division, with the aim of achieving breakthroughs in the field of AI.

Q: Are there any challenging yet essential tasks in conducting patient-provider education?

Chen Jun:For instance, education in primary healthcare markets. Conducting patient and physician education in these markets faces two major challenges: first, the vast geographic area and remote locations; second, the varying levels of physicians’ professional competence. This requires a clear understanding of customers’ actual needs and delivering the information they require through appropriate channels. If you share the latest international research advancements with a physician at a county-level hospital, they will likely not be interested; what they need more is practical guidance on how to effectively treat diseases.

Patient education in primary care markets is highly worthwhile, as these areas often lack mainstream patient education media, leaving patients to rely heavily on misleading claims from small advertisements for disease-related knowledge. In such grassroots settings, digital platforms and channels can maximize their impact, achieving broad coverage at low cost.

(Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article represent only the personal opinions of the interviewee, Chen Jun.)