Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO)<\/a> reported first-quarter results that far exceeded analyst estimates on Wednesday, driven by surging demand for its oral weight-loss pill and strong international sales.<\/p>\nNet sales reached $15.2 billion in the quarter, well above the $11.2 billion analysts had forecast.<\/p>\n
Operating profit came in at $9.4 billion, nearly double the $5 billion consensus estimate, up 65% at constant exchange rates.<\/p>\n
Gross margin expanded to 85.9%, topping the 81.3% estimate.<\/p>\n
Shares were up 3.1% in New York trading on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
The Danish drugmaker raised its full-year 2026 guidance, now projecting adjusted sales to decline between 4% and 12% at constant exchange rates, an improvement from its prior outlook of a 5% to 13% decline, with adjusted operating profit growth guided to the same range.<\/p>\n
Sales of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s flagship GLP-1 diabetes drug, came in at $4.4 billion, ahead of the $4.1 billion estimate. Obesity care sales reached $3.3 billion, up 22% at constant exchange rates versus the $3 billion forecast.<\/p>\n
The standout performer was the oral version of Wegovy, which generated $354 million in sales against analyst expectations of $182 million. The pill drew approximately 1.3 million prescriptions in the first quarter, with total prescriptions since launch surpassing 2 million. More than 1 million patients have used the pill since its January launch.<\/p>\n
Novo Nordisk also noted progress on its higher-dose formulation, Wegovy HD, which received FDA approval in March and launched in the US in April. The product demonstrated 20.7% mean weight loss in its STEP UP phase 3 trial.<\/p>\n
On the diabetes side, the company’s once-weekly basal insulin Awiqli received FDA approval as the first-ever treatment of its kind for type 2 diabetes. Additionally, its sickle cell disease candidate etavopivat met both co-primary endpoints in the HIBISCUS phase 3 trial.<\/p>\n
On an adjusted basis, net sales totaled $11 billion, down 4% at constant exchange rates, with adjusted operating profit of $5.2 billion, down 6% at constant exchange rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novo Nordisk beats estimates, raises guidance on Wegovy pill surge Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock Novo Nordisk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[41774,1282,5219,41773,272,4165],"class_list":{"0":"post-78239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-novo-nordisk","8":"tag-analyst-estimates","9":"tag-consensus-estimate","10":"tag-exchange-rates","11":"tag-international-sales","12":"tag-novo-nordisk","13":"tag-operating-profit"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116540981017215182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78239","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=78239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Novo Nordisk beats estimates, raises guidance on Wegovy pill surge Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n