Weak sales of Wegovy overshadowed Novo's "clearly less-than-impressive" forecast revision
A Danish pioneer in the market for diabetes and weight-loss drugs shows no signs of emerging from the crisis
Novo Nordisk shares fell after the company reported disappointing sales results for its weight-loss drug / Photo: Shutterstock.com / Kittyfly
Shares of the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk fell 6% at the close of trading on August 4 in the U.S. The company raised its sales and earnings guidance for the second time this year, but investors focused on the weaker-than-expected sales of the weight-loss drug Wegovy in tablet form. Moreover, analysts considered the upward revision of the annual targets to be insufficiently ambitious.
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Novo Nordisk’s revenue and operating profit this year will, at best, remain unchanged and, at worst, fall by 6%, the company announced on August 4. The previous forecast called for a 4–12% decline in both figures.
At the same time, Novo reported that sales of Wegovy in tablet form totaled 3.22 billion Danish kroner (about $497 million). The result was in line with analysts’ expectations, Bloomberg noted. According to StreetAccount, Wall Street had forecast 3.27 billion kroner. This result may have disappointed investors who had expected more from the drug, which had shown the strongest launch among modern obesity treatments, Bloomberg added.
“The upward revision to the forecast was clearly not impressive,” the agency quotes Jared Holz, a healthcare sector strategist at Mizuho Securities, as saying. The lack of a significant beat in sales expectations for Wegovy tablets put additional pressure on the stock, he believes. However, the company’s overall performance looks better than it did at the beginning of the year, Holtz added in his comments to CNBC.
Novo's total revenue for the past quarter was 78.49 billion Danish kroner ($12.09 billion), up 3% at constant exchange rates. Adjusted operating profit rose 11% to 33.39 billion Danish kroner (about $5.14 billion).
Novo warned that it expects a decline in U.S. sales due to current trends in prescriptions for GLP-1 injectables, intensifying competition, reduced coverage for weight-loss drugs under the federal Medicaid program, as well as price reductions following a pricing agreement with the Donald Trump administration, according to CNBC.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
