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

It’s the main production centre for weight deficit drug Wegovy. Semaglutide, used in Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic, is made in a factory here, and parent corporation Novo Nordisk has invested more than $8.5 billion (£6.5bn) in the town. That’s nearly the entire GDP of Monaco.

But persuading people to actually live in the town could prove tricky.

There’s an influx of workers and builders at the factory in the morning and an exodus in the afternoon – locals call it the “Novo Queue” and recommend avoiding the town’s road for these hours each day.

Hardly any of the workers remain – they live outside and drive in.

So when there’s £400,000 of resource per resident, what’s there not to like?

Behind the rosy figures, Kalundborg faces many challenges, from rundown schools and low incomes to many children being overweight.

State school grades in Danish language and maths here are below the national average. Some on the town’s periphery have few facilities inside or out, with just ancient swings in the playground.

“If you saw that, you will receive one of the large cities around here and declare, ‘Well, we will live there and then I can drive to Kalundborg to work,'” regional councillor Helle Laursen Petersen tells me.

She says these schools are struggling to attract experienced teachers, helping to fuel low expectations among many parents.

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

Ali, Anna K, Anna and Marie at Gymnasium, the most academic secondary school in the area, inform me they desire to leave to study.

“It might become fascinating later, but as of now, I ponder it’s a bit too dull to settle down here – I ponder I’d like a larger city,” Anna K says.

But Ali and Marie are more enthusiastic about coming back after their studies, optimistic of more job opportunities in the town so they can enjoy its natural beauty more.

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

But other shops, such as those selling shoes and clothes, quickly open then shut down again because of the amount of workers living elsewhere.

Many families on low incomes live here, priced out of the financing Copenhagen where rents and property prices have soared – leaving some on benefits and others relying on work at the factory.

Kalundborg also has a health issue – it’s in the highest 5% of Danish towns for children being overweight.

Novo Nordisk, meanwhile, is now Europe’s most valuable corporation with a profits last year of more than $33bn – bringing its economy worth to more than $500bn.

resource in the town aims to add 1,250 jobs to the existing 4,500 employees at the Kalundborg plant and ramp up production of its best-selling drugs. While the corporation represents about 1% of the Danish workforce, it accounts for a more sizeable proportion of its growth.

Denmark’s market advancement was 1.1% over the first nine months of 2023. But strip away the pharmaceutical sector, dominated by Novo, and the economy shrank by 0.8%. Some analysts have warned that parts of the country’s economy risks becoming too reliant on the pharmaceutical industry.

The town’s mayor Martin Damm is upbeat, insisting that more than 1,000 recent jobs are being created here every year and some youthful people are joyful to call it home.

“In Europe people are moving from the rural area into the large cities and this is going the opposite way,” he says.

“This is the little city [that] attracts large resource.”

He also insists that schools are being refurbished or already have excellent facilities – and that rising prosperity will, in period, navigator to healthier lifestyles.

Miguel, an 18-year-ancient learner from Madrid studying bio-technology on one of the recent university courses in the town, has just joined a local football throng with players from Brazil, Mexico, Poland and Ukraine.

“There’s so many international people in this town and almost everyone that I’ve talked to in English has responded in English,” he says.

Amanda, from Brazil, insists opportunities are here – she’s landed a job, placed her two youthful children in a local school and hopes that they’ll remain here for university.

A recent highway is also being built to assist ease the town’s chronic congestion – but getting people to live here will be the real fix for that.

Students at the Gymnasium ponder the town is at something of a crossroads.

“In five years, I ponder the town [will have] grown quite a lot – I aspiration for a multi multicultural town,” says Anna K.

“If that is so, then I might consider moving back.”

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