--- title: TIME100 Health: Mike Doustdar description: Find out why Mike Doustdar is on the TIME100 Health 2026 list. canonical: https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-02-11T13:01:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T01:06:18.964Z article:section: Health og:title: TIME100 Health: Mike Doustdar og:description: Find out why Mike Doustdar is on the TIME100 Health 2026 list. og:url: https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0913208fe80a3f6b/6998ce439fbc7c1677d9ae20/T100-Health-2026-Doustdar.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME100 Health: Mike Doustdar og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME100 Health: Mike Doustdar twitter:description: Find out why Mike Doustdar is on the TIME100 Health 2026 list. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0913208fe80a3f6b/6998ce439fbc7c1677d9ae20/T100-Health-2026-Doustdar.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Feb 11, 2026 # Mike Doustdar Multiplying weight-loss meds by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/) ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent  Courtesy of Novo Nordisk When Mike Doustdar started as a summer employee making copies at Novo Nordisk—a teenager living in Austria after fleeing unrest in his home country of Iran at 12—he never imagined he would remain at the company for more than 30 years, let alone lead it as CEO. Doustdar now heads the Danish company that makes the popular diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss medication Wegovy, both of which contain the GLP-1 compound semaglutide. In January, Novo Nordisk launched the first GLP-1 pill for weight loss, marking a significant step in making the drugs more convenient and less expensive to take than the injectable forms previously on the market. It’s a critical test. Doustdar was tapped as CEO last summer in part to restore the company’s presence in the diabetes and obesity space, after ceding ground to competitor Eli Lilly. Lilly’s weight-loss drug Zepbound comes at higher doses and so tends to produce greater weight loss than Wegovy. Novo Nordisk needed a chief executive with resilience and flexibility to lead the comeback, and Doustdar says he adopted those skills moving to a country where he didn’t speak the language. “I learned from an early age to build a bit of resilience and to manage uncertainty,” he says. The new GLP-1 pill for obesity, the rollout of which he’s overseeing, boasts several advantages. Studies the company conducted showed that people taking the pill every day lose about the same amount of weight as those getting weekly injections—about 16% to 17% of their body weight. And because pills are cheaper to produce, more people may be able to afford a Wegovy pill. In an agreement with the White House, Wegovy pills cost $149 for a month’s supply of the starting doses, and $299 for the two higher doses, for people paying out of pocket as well as those on federal insurance plans. People whose private insurance plans cover the drug may pay as little as $25 a month. Later this year, Doustdar also plans to introduce a higher dose of Wegovy’s injectable form, which the company’s studies show leads to about 20% weight loss, comparable to Lilly’s Zepbound, to “close the gap with our competitor.” Both are also studying a different group of compounds called amylins that could expand the range of weight-loss drugs even further. While Novo Nordisk was also studying semaglutide’s potential to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, a highly anticipated study revealed little difference between people injecting the drug and those getting placebo. Doustdar says his team will continue to analyze the data, but has decided to stop any additional studies on Alzheimer’s. Still, he is confident that there may be other health benefits of semaglutide, which amounts to what he calls “secret sauce.” Doustdar’s strategy to grow Novo Nordisk’s presence involves building a portfolio of diabetes and obesity treatments that can meet the needs of as many people as possible. “We’re talking about 2 billion people, and eventually someone has to produce all the doses for them,” he says. “We are sitting in the right spot right now, and still only touching a fraction of the people who are in need.” [_Click here to buy your copy of this issue_](https://magazineshop.us/health26) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/"},"headline":"Mike Doustdar","datePublished":"2026-02-11T13:01:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:06:18.964Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/","keywords":["TIME100 Health 2026","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0913208fe80a3f6b/6998ce439fbc7c1677d9ae20/T100-Health-2026-Doustdar.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"creator":"Alice Park","articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0913208fe80a3f6b/6998ce439fbc7c1677d9ae20/T100-Health-2026-Doustdar.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-health-2026/","name":"TIME100 Health 2026"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/7362454/mike-doustdar/","name":"Mike Doustdar"}}]}] ```