Novo Nordisk faces more gloom from price cuts in crowded anti-obesity drugs market
Danish group’s challenges mount despite winning reprieve after Hims & Hers withdraws plan to sell copycat Wegovy pill
Novo Nordisk endured a turbulent 2025 marked by a sliding share price, intensifying competition and divisions that led to a board exodus. The start to this year shows there is no end in sight to the company’s woes.
The anti-obesity pioneer issued a dismal sales and profit forecast on Wednesday last week that pushed its share price down by almost 20 per cent. The following day, it was hit by news that the US telehealth group Hims & Hers was launching a much cheaper copycat version of its Wegovy pill.
While Novo received a reprieve on Saturday when Hims & Hers said it would no longer offer the discounted product following “constructive conversations with stakeholders across the industry”, the episode highlighted the challenges facing the company.
News of the copycat had enraged the Danish group, which has threatened legal action. It followed Novo’s announcement on Wednesday that it expected net sales to fall by as much as 13 per cent this year — gloomier than what the most bearish analysts had expected.
Mike Doustdar, who in August was appointed chief executive of the maker of the Ozempic and Wegovy blockbuster drugs, was already grappling with how to find new growth areas. He has warned of further losses in Novo’s shares after a drop of more than 50 per cent in the past year.
“I don’t disagree with the notion of some short-term pain to come,” said Markus Manns, a senior portfolio manager and healthcare specialist at Union Investment, who described Novo’s guidance as “shocking”.
“With this kind of guidance, it’s very difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel,” he added.
In addition to competition in an increasingly crowded obesity market, Novo is facing price cuts in the US that Doustdar has described as “painful” as well as expiring patents in some key markets.
Novo, which was once Europe’s most valuable company, ousted its former chief and suffered board departures last year after a dispute with its majority shareholder, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, over how to stem declines in profit growth and the share price. The company risks falling further behind US rival Eli Lilly, whose share price rose on Wednesday after saying its 2026 sales would jump to at least $80bn, from $65bn last year.
Novo blamed its guidance on what Doustdar called “unprecedented pricing pressure” in the US — its largest market — where efforts by President Donald Trump to lower prices will weigh on how much the company can charge.
As part of the most favoured nation agreement, pharmaceutical groups have to peg US drug prices at the lowest price paid in other developed countries.
For Novo, this means cutting the price of injectable Ozempic and Wegovy drugs from at least $1,000 a month to $350 when purchased on TrumpRx, the president’s new direct-to-consumer website.
The company will also reduce prices for patients covered by the Medicare and Medicaid government insurance plans.
Karsten Munk Knudsen, Novo’s chief financial officer, said the new US pricing models would hurt sales on two fronts: cash-paying consumers and insurance reimbursements. But lower prices can also boost volumes.
“Clearly, what we need to show as a company is that lower pricing in the self-pay segment opens up for more patients starting on our products,” he told the FT.
The US slowdown only tells part of the story.
The company expects growth in international sales to slow to “mid-single digits” this year from about 10 per cent in 2025, due to expiring patents for Wegovy and Ozempic in markets such as Canada, Brazil, India and China. That will allow generic manufacturers to sell the drugs at lower prices.
Novo had been hoping for a boost from January’s introduction of the pill version of Wegovy in the US. It began retailing for $149 at the lowest dose and has already been bought by about 170,000 people.
That optimism was put to the test by Hims & Hers’ attempt to offer a treatment that would have retailed at just $49 a month. Hims & Hers said it remained “committed to the millions of Americans who depend on us for access to safe, affordable and personalised care”.
The withdrawal of the competing product does not necessarily mean the end of Novo’s troubles.
Analysts at Jefferies last month warned that the company faced challenges such as the entry of similar products and the possibility of customers switching from the more expensive injectable Wegovy to the pill version.
Lilly is awaiting regulatory approval for its own anti-obesity pill orforglipron, though it has underperformed Novo’s oral medicine in efficacy and tolerability in trials.
Other major groups, including Pfizer and Roche, are also preparing to launch anti-obesity drugs to challenge Novo and Lilly.
Investors have long complained about Novo’s limited pipeline compared with its peers as well as its dependence on obesity and diabetes treatments, which accounted for more than 90 per cent of its 2025 sales.
One analyst said Novo, which last year lost out to Pfizer in a bid to buy obesity-focused biotech Metsera, needed to acquire new assets to boost its pipeline, adding that business development was a significant weakness.
Knudsen said the company would be interested in adding a GLP-1 drug that could be taken once a month — instead of daily or weekly — to its portfolio.
Novo has also announced two more departures among its senior ranks, with the head of its US business and the boss of product and portfolio strategy both leaving.
It has hired Jamey Millar from Optum, a subsidiary of insurance company UnitedHealth Group, to take on the role of running the US division.
Optum is one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers that act as intermediaries in the industry, and Novo hopes that Millar’s experience in the sector, as well as a three-decade career that included stints at GSK and Procter & Gamble, will benefit the company.
But UBS analysts said the turnover of senior staff “does not provide confidence in the company’s direction”.