Novo Nordisk's Liraglutide Logos Leak Out Before Approval

(MoneyWatch)  UPDATE: As BNET predicted, the new Novo Nordisk logos have been suddenly removed from the web. You can still see a Google cache of the page here, and a screen grab here. Novo Nordisk's new diabetes drug, liraglutide, isn't approved by the FDA yet but the company is already working on a set of colorful new logos to promote the drug. You can see them here. The logos all revolve around a theme of five different colors (burgundy, navy, turquoise, slate blue and orange), represented in such things as rain drops, flower petals or apples. Taglines include "Growing our future," "It's time to grow," "Growing together," and "The big picture." (The "It's time to grow" logo, which features apples, looks like a candidate for a copyright infringement claim by Apple Computer.)

The logos were created by design shop Pixel Punch in the UK. I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest that the company is going to receive some angry phonecalls from Novo about releasing their new trademarks w-a-a-ay before the official -- or even legal -- launch date.

Nonethless, Novo may be feeling secure in its daily liraglutide application with the FDA because it has not received one of the new letters requiring drugmakers to do more study of cardiovascular events prior to approval. (BNET readers learned of this new FDA requirement on Nov. 17 and Nov. 25.) However, as this Reuters story says, the company did get a letter regarding once-weekly luraglutide.

Diabetic blogs are already giving the company advice on which logo they should pick. Although this poster doesn't seem to understand that liraglutide is indeed a diabetes drug, the company might do well to road test its work before releasing it. You can learn from confusion in the marketplace.