COPENHAGEN, May 6 (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk, the maker of weight-loss drug Wegovy, on Wednesday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted operating profit above expectations and said its outlook \u200cfor the year was slightly improved.<\/p>\n
The Danish drugmaker is banking on demand for \u200cits new weight-loss pill as competition with U.S. rival Eli Lilly intensifies and investors demand proof that fast-rising \u200bvolumes can offset a bruising obesity drug price war.<\/p>\n
Novo said its adjusted operating profit was 32.86 billion Danish crowns ($5.16 billion) in the first quarter against a mean forecast of 28.74 billion according to a company-compiled poll.<\/p>\n
Novo Nordisk said it now expects its adjusted sales and operating profit to decline this \u200cyear by between 4% and \u206012% at constant exchange rates, compared with a previous range of minus 5% to minus 13% for both variables.<\/p>\n
“The strong Wegovy performance, combined \u2060with continued growth in International Operations, has led us to raise our 2026 guidance for both adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit,\u201d CEO Mike Doustdar said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Novo has spent much of \u200bthe \u200bpast year on the defensive, grappling with setbacks \u200bincluding disappointing trial results for its next-generation \u200cobesity drug, weaker than expected sales and a share price slide that has erased more than $400 billion in market value since its 2024 peak.<\/p>\n
Under Doustdar, who was appointed last year, Novo Nordisk is pinning a near-term recovery on its newly launched Wegovy pill, with margins already under pressure following last year’s price cuts to the group’s blockbuster weight-loss injection.<\/p>\n
But Novo \u200cNordisk’s window as the only oral obesity pill on \u200bthe U.S. market slammed shut in early April \u200bwhen Eli Lilly received FDA approval for \u200bits competing drug Foundayo, intensifying the battle with its main rival.<\/p>\n
Novo \u200cNordisk’s share price is down almost 40% \u200bin the last 12 \u200bmonths, lagging Lilly’s rise of around 18% over the same period, though the stock has been slowly tracking upwards since late March on rising hopes for its \u200bweight-loss pill.<\/p>\n
Rival Lilly last \u200cweek hiked its full-year profit and revenue forecasts as surging demand for its \u200bweight-loss and diabetes drugs helped offset lower prices across U.S. and international markets.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, May 6 (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk, the maker of weight-loss drug Wegovy, on Wednesday reported first-quarter revenue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[276,272,7979,4165],"class_list":{"0":"post-76544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-novo-nordisk","8":"tag-eli-lilly","9":"tag-novo-nordisk","10":"tag-obesity-drug","11":"tag-operating-profit"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116530474160511314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}