Novo Nordisk’s multibillion-dollar honeymoon phase spearheaded by Ozempic and Wegovy is ending. Now the Danish drugmaker is hunting for new patients to maintain its crown as Europe’s most valuable company.
The pharmaceutical giant beat analyst expectations after growing both sales and operating profits by 25% in 2024. As was the case in both 2022 and 2023, its commercialized GLP-1 medication for weight loss was the overwhelming driver of sales.
However, the company forecasts sales growth of between 16% and 24% in 2025, a slowdown on last year’s growth in a sign of increased competition and supply constraints as the group continues to scale. The target was broadly in line with investor expectations, though, who predicted sales growth slightly below 20% in 2025.
Ozempic and Wegovy helped Novo Nordisk increase their annual sales by $15 billion in the space of just two years following 2022 sales of $25 billion. However, its semaglutide patent begins to expire in 2026 and the emergence of Eli Lilly’s rival weight loss product Mounjaro/Zepbound has increased the urgency for the group to find new ways to differentiate itself.
To do so, Novo Nordisk’s CFO, Karsten Munk Knudsen, says the company is now looking at the next generation of weight loss drugs, which are expected to focus on specific subsets of the obese community.
“We're talking about a huge potential market of more than 800 million people suffering from obesity, and we are only serving 2 million today,” Knudsen told Fortune.
“And with that opportunity comes a number of sub-segments in the markets. That could be patients with very high BMIs, hence looking for high[ly] efficacious products, it would be patients looking for potentially more convenient products and less efficacious [products]. So there will be a number of sub-segments in the markets and that's basically what our R&D portfolio is catering for.”
Novo’s newest GLP-1, CagriSema, is the first big test of Novo Nordisk’s future as the leader in the obesity treatment market. The drug is more potent than Ozempic and Wegovy, expanding treatment to heavier patients while perhaps reducing treatment times for other individuals.
Unfortunately, the drug’s early days in the limelight have presented problems for Novo Nordisk.
Investors were left frustrated by a lack of detail following the release of disappointing early trial results. Shares plunged after the drugmaker revealed CagriSema helped trial participants shed 22.7% of their weight, less than the expected 25%.
The relatively low 57% share of patients who took the full dose throughout the trial period also puzzled investors, Reuters reported, who are unsure as to why the remaining patients reduced their doses.
Knudsen admitted there was a “high information need” around CagriSema and that Novo needed to communicate to markets better after the hugely negative reaction to December’s results.
“It's important when framing this that, yes, it was a disappointment compared to expectations in terms of absolute weight loss, but what we showed was actually the highest numerical weight loss in any pivotal trial in obesity at similar safety and tolerability,” said Knudsen.
Speaking on an earnings call on Wednesday morning, Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Freurgaard Jorgensen highlighted that patients on the trial lost an average of 24 kilograms of body weight from a 107 kg base.
Novo says CagriSema’s results also show how patients respond differently to more potent weight loss drugs.
