By Stine Jacobsen and Maggie Fick
COPENHAGEN/LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk beat first-quarter profit forecasts and nudged up its full-year outlook on Wednesday, helped by stronger-than-expected sales of its new weight-loss pill as it seeks to close the gap with U.S. rival Eli Lilly.
Shares in the Danish drugmaker were up 5.8% at 0913 GMT and were on track for the biggest daily jump so far this year.
Novo is banking on its pill to claw back ground lost to Lilly in the U.S. and offset intensifying price competition. Novo plans to launch the Wegovy pill in the first markets outside the United States in the second half of 2026.
Novo reported adjusted operating profit was 32.86 billion Danish crowns ($5.16 billion), above the 28.74 billion forecast in a company-compiled poll.
It slightly improved its full-year outlook, forecasting adjusted sales and operating profit declines of 4% to 12% at constant exchange rates, versus a previous range of minus 5% to minus 13%. Lilly last week raised its annual profit and revenue forecasts by a wider margin.
Under CEO Mike Doustdar, Novo is pinning its near-term recovery on the new pill after last year’s price cuts to its Wegovy injection squeezed margins.
But its window as the only oral obesity pill in the U.S. market closed in early April after Lilly won FDA approval for rival drug Foundayo, opening a new chapter in the battle between the two drugmakers.
“We have now been competing with our competitor for about a month…and so far, so good,” CEO Mike Doustdar told journalists on a call.
Total prescriptions for the Wegovy pill reached about 1.3 million in the first quarter and more than 2 million since its January launch, which Doustdar said made it the strongest GLP-1 launch by volume in the United States. He added the company was not seeing significant “drop-offs” of patients who had begun taking the new pill.
NOVO SEEKS TO REBUILD MOMENTUM
The results marked an early test of whether the Wegovy pill can revive growth at Novo.
Sales of the pill reached 2.26 billion crowns, nearly double analyst forecasts.
“The Wegovy pill is the clear bright spot of the day,” said Oskar Bernhardtsen, investment strategist at Saxo Bank, though he cautioned that the guidance upgrade was slightly less than what the market had hoped for.
Adjusted group sales came in at 70.06 billion Danish crowns in the quarter, above the 69.07 billion expected by analysts.
Novo has spent much of the past year on the defensive after disappointing trial results for its next-generation obesity pipeline, weaker than expected sales and a share price slide that has wiped more than $400 billion off its market value since its 2024 peak.
CFO Karsten Munk Knudsen told reporters the company’s market research showed patients were shifting away from the compounded obesity drugs that weighed on Wegovy sales.
The company also said more than half of Wegovy sales in the United States now came through lower-priced self-pay channels, up from just over 10% a year ago, as Novo sharpens its consumer focus to sell its medicines amid mounting price pressure.
Novo shares are down nearly 40% over 12 months, lagging Lilly’s roughly 18% rise, though the stock has edged higher since late March on optimism around the pill launch.
Novo says it has submitted its Wegovy pill to the European Medicines Agency and other regulatory authorities, without naming countries.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Maggie Fick; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Heavens and Elaine Hardcastle)
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