They have been a few rocky months to Novo Nordisk.
IQVIA prescription data suggest that the Novo Wegovy Obesity Medication is losing ground to rival Zepbound from Eli Lilly. Wegovy's potential successor, Cagrisema, did not achieve the expectations of investors in a phase 3 trial. Novo's shares have fallen more than 20% during the last year, and people feared that things get worse even more when the company launched a profits of the fourth quarter and its 2025 perspective on Wednesday.
Instead, Novo exceeded the expectations of the fourth quarter and provided a sales growth forecast between 16% and 24%, in line with 20% of Wall Street was looking for. Novo shares rose more than 4% on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNBC, the executive director of Novo, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, ruled out the concerns that Novo is staying behind Lilly.
“We are quite sure that as we advance a year and we will be supplying more and more of the starting doses, we can see a good step in our volume and serve more and more patients,” said Jorgesen. “And the guide we have given for this year, you can say, testifies a significant underlying ramp in our business. Therefore, we are quite safe both in the demand in the market and in our ability to supply and compete in that market.”
Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty images
People who take their partner begin with the lowest dose, or the start dose, then they make their way to stronger formulations so that their bodies can get used to the drug. Sometimes, Novo has limited the amount of starting dose he sent because he fought To do enough drug and wanted to make sure that the people who were already on the medication could remain in it.
The Novo 2025 sales guide implies a 30% increase in the number of patients taking one of the company's LPG-1 medicines, such as Ozempic, the company said in its earnings.
The company also tried to reassure investors about the effectiveness of Cagrisema. Jorgesen said that some people lost weight very quickly, and another group lost weight continuously, not showing any sign of stopping for when the test ended, so they might need a longer treatment.
“I have a lot of confidence in the power of the biology we have here,” he said.
People are seeing a treatment in the previous stage, Amycretina, even closer. This experimental drug recently showed promising results in a 1b/2a phase trial.
Jorgesen said Novo is talking to the FDA about possibly moving directly to a three phase test.
