Sales of weight loss drug Wegovy more than doubled in the final three months of 2024 but its manufacturer has predicted growth will slow this year.
Novo Nordisk's rise to become one of Europe's most valuable companies has been fuelled by the exploding demand for its obesity treatments, including Wegovy.
The company said more than 45 million people were now “benefitting from our treatments”.
It revealed that sales of Wegovy, a prescription weight loss injection, surged to 19.9 billion Danish kroner (£2.2 billion) in the fourth quarter of last year, from 9.6 billion kroner (£1.1 billion) a year earlier.
Sales of the treatment were up 86 per cent for the year as a whole.
The strong sales of Wegovy and fellow weight loss treatment Ozempic helped the company’s sales rise 26 per cent for the year, ahead of analyst predictions.
However, it told shareholders on Wednesday that it expects sales to slow slightly next year, guiding towards a range of between 16 per cent and 24 per cent growth.
Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, president and chief executive, said: “We are pleased with the performance in 2024, where 26 per cent sales growth reflects that more than 45 million people are now benefitting from our treatments.
“Further, we completed the acquisition of the three Catalent sites, and during the year, we progressed our R&D pipeline, including obesity projects such as CagriSema and amycretin.
“In 2025, we will continue our focus on commercial execution, on the progression of our early and late-stage R&D pipeline and on the expansion of our production capacity.”
It comes as new restrictions have been placed on the sale of weight-loss drugs by the pharmacy regulator in the UK.
The change comes after groups including the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) called for tougher rules after they learnt of people being wrongly prescribed the drugs who already had a low body weight or those who previously had eating disorders.
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) said it was responding to those concerns following reports that some people were getting hold of the drugs without thorough checks, and some online pharmacies have set targets for how many prescriptions should be processed per hour.
The GPhC has told online pharmacies they can now only prescribe the weight-loss drugs following a proper two-way consultation with the patient, and they must verify the patient’s body mass index via either a video consultation, an in-person assessment or by accessing medical records.
The move, which is intended to make sure jabs such as Wegovy or Mounjaro are prescribed safely, means it will no longer be enough to prescribe the drugs following email correspondence, a phone call, from questionnaires, or by people sending in photos of themselves.
