Wegovy pill on track for blockbuster status as Novo Nordisk navigates crowded GLP-1 market Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) oral version of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy is emerging as the central battleground for investors in the Danish pharmaceutical giant.
And both UBS and Citi are highlighting the pill’s trajectory as the defining question for the company’s medium-term outlook following a strong set of first-quarter results and a London investor event.
Weekly prescriptions for the Wegovy pill have already surpassed 200,000 in the US, a level UBS describes as putting the drug on course to become a multi-blockbuster product, with the bank forecasting sales of $2.2 billion for the current financial year, up from an earlier estimate of $1.8 billion.
The first-quarter numbers themselves were ahead of expectations across most metrics.
Operating profit rose 77% year-on-year to DKK32.9 billion, beating consensus by 5%, while the sales beat of 1% was driven by stronger-than-expected obesity revenues, with the Wegovy pill delivering DKK2.26 billion against a consensus estimate of around DKK1.1 billion.
Management described the pill’s pricing, which sits at a material discount to the injectable version and is predominantly sold as a cash-pay product outside insurance coverage, as being at a “sweet spot”, with uptake so far running ahead of comparable injectable launch trajectories.
The competitive picture, however, is intensifying. Citi’s coverage of Novo’s London investor meeting noted that differentiation against rival oral treatments was a central focus, alongside questions around US access and reimbursement, and the timeline for international pill launches as injectable generics begin to emerge in certain markets.
On that front, Novo said it expects to launch the oral Wegovy in select international markets in the second half of this year, a timeline supported by supply scaling that has so far kept pace with record US demand.
Both banks retain ‘neutral’ ratings on the stock, and the scepticism is rooted in the same structural concern: Novo’s obesity franchise rests heavily on semaglutide as a single active molecule, and the pipeline beyond CagriSema, its combination therapy, and zenagamtide, the next-generation candidate previously known as amycretin, remains a work in progress.
Management acknowledged this dynamic directly, terminating the CagriSema co-formulation project and accelerating the zenagamtide phase three programme, known as AMAZE, in a move it said reflects confidence that the existing dual-chamber delivery device is already fully scalable.
Full-year guidance was nudged upward by 100 basis points, with Novo now targeting sales and operating profit decline of between 4% and 12% at constant currency, reflecting the stronger pill trajectory partially offset by continued pressure on Ozempic pricing in the US and a weaker insulin franchise.