100 Most Influential People in Healthcare - 2024

Langa has been leading Novo Nordisk’s largest sales region — comprising the U.S. and Canada — since 2017. Thanks to increasing demand for the Denmark-based company’s glucagon-like peptide 1 agonist drugs, or GLP-1s, sales increased 31% in U.S. dollars the first nine months of 2024. According to May 2024 Gallup data, approximately 15.5 million U.S. adults have reported using weight loss drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic, which was approved in the U.S. in 2017, and Wegovy, which was introduced in 2021. Before joining Novo Nordisk in 2011, Langa held management roles at GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson. In November, Langa announced he would step down from his current position at the end of the year to become senior adviser to executive management at Novo Nordisk.