Novo Nordisk’s (NYSE:NVO)<\/a> oral version of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy is emerging as the central battleground for investors in the Danish pharmaceutical giant.<\/p>\nAnd 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The first-quarter numbers themselves were ahead of expectations across most metrics.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wegovy pill on track for blockbuster status as Novo Nordisk navigates crowded GLP-1 market Proactive uses images sourced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[35802,1282,272],"class_list":{"0":"post-77998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-novo-nordisk","8":"tag-blockbuster","9":"tag-consensus-estimate","10":"tag-novo-nordisk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116539577292378094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77998","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=77998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Wegovy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778252713_260_6089e3a607bd6b36732c30f99f036876.jpeg\")
Wegovy pill on track for blockbuster status as Novo Nordisk navigates crowded GLP-1 market Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n