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People walk past a sign for Novo Nordisk’s annual general meeting at the entrance to the venue in Copenhagen, Denmark, March 26, 2026.
Tom Little | Reuters
Novo Nordisk hiked its annual profit guidance on Wednesday, as the drugmaker said its Wegovy weight-loss pill performed better than expected in the first three months of the year, sending its shares sharply higher.
Novo hiked its 2026 full-year guidance on the back of increased expectations for GLP-1 product sales, saying it now expects adjusted sales and profit to contract between 4% and 12% on a currency-adjusted basis, an improvement on the previously projected decline of between 5% and 13%.
The company’s shares rose 6.7% in morning trading in Copenhagen, climbing down from earlier gains that saw the stock rise by more than 8%.
Novo said first-quarter sales jumped 32% on a constant currency basis to reach 96.8 billion Danish kroner ($15.2 billion), while operating profit surged 65% to 59.6 billion kroner on a reported basis.
On an adjusted basis, sales however, fell 4% while profits fell 6%.
Adjusted figures exclude a $4.2 billion non-recurring impact from a provision reversal related to the 340B Drug Pricing Program in the U.S., Novo said.
The quarter was the first period covering sales of Novo’s oral weight loss drug, the Wegovy pill, in the U.S. Sales of the pill amounted to 2.26 billion kroner, well above analyst estimates compiled by Reuters of 1.16 billion kroner.
Despite accounting for only a fraction of total sales, investors are closely watching the sales trajectory of the pills, which is widening the market for these drugs.
In its earnings release on Wednesday, Novo said the Wegovy pill saw around 1.3 million prescriptions in the first three months of the year.
Novo also announced that, pending regulatory approvals, the Wegovy pill will launch outside the U.S. during the second half of 2026.
“The numbers with the pill speak for themselves,” CEO Mike Doustdar told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed, highlighting that the product was well tolerated by patients.
Doustdar said he was seeing sales of the pill growing by double digits despite competition from rival Eli Lilly’s obesity pill Foundayo that was launched in the U.S. in April.
Novo’s Wegovy brand now commands 65% of all new prescriptions in the U.S., Doustdar said, calling it a “turnaround situation.”
A concern for investors has been the extent the introduction of oral alternatives would hamper sales of the older, injectable products.
But on “pill versus a pen,” people are using both, Doustdar said. “It’s having not cannibalizations, but a synergetic effect,” he said.
Sales of its injectable Wegovy drug jumped 12% year-on-year to 18.2 billion kronor, falling slightly short of expectations compiled by LSEG.
Meanwhile, sales of diabetes drug Ozempic fell by 8%, but came in above expectations, according to LSEG.
The broader obesity care category saw adjusted constant currency sales rise by 22%.
“The strong Wegovy performance, combined with continued growth in International Operations, has led us to raise our 2026 guidance for both adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit,” Doustdar said in a statement alongside the results.
But, in a note following the publication of Novo’s earnings update, equity analysts at Jefferies said Novo’s change in guidance was unlikely to have a positive impact on consensus forecasts — noting market expectations could even contract in response.
“We suspect the fact that the company has not lifted the lower end of the guidance range more will be seen as a negative,” they said.
Novo and its chief rival, Eli Lilly, have been locked in a fierce battle for market share in the lucrative weight-loss market, which analysts see growing to $100 billion by the end of the decade.
Lilly has overtaken Novo in the key U.S. market for its injectable diabetes and weight loss drugs, which has been the focus of their rivalry. Pharma companies typically rely heavily on the U.S., where prices for branded drugs are often several times higher than elsewhere.
Lilly launched its own weight loss pill, Foundayo, in early April.
Novo sells its GLP-1 drug, semaglutide, as Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss.
Lilly, meanwhile, last week posted sales growth for rival GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound of 125% and 80%, respectively. It also hiked its full-year outlook on the back of the better-than-expected results as total revenue grew 56% in the quarter.
Wegovy pill drives sentiment
Novo’s results come as investor sentiment around the company had slowly begun to recover following the launch of the Wegovy pill in the U.S. in early January, which analysts hailed as “one of the best launches ever.”
Lilly CEO David Ricks told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week that the ramp-up of its pill, Foundayo, was going to take “quarters, not days.” Prescriptions for the first few weeks of Foundayo significantly lagged those of the Wegovy pill in the comparable period. As Foundayo, unlike Wegovy pill, is a completely new medicine, it will take time to build the brand, Ricks said.
The early lead in the oral weight loss market is a welcome boost to Novo, which has faced a series of setbacks over the past year, including disappointing trial results and financial outlooks.
Investors have also questioned the commercial viability of Novo’s pipeline, such as its next-generation drug CagriSema, which was shown to be inferior to Zepbound in Novo’s own study earlier this year. The event prompted Novo stock to close at a new 5-year low.
Analysts have flagged difficulties in predicting prescriptions and sales of these weight loss drugs, as GLP-1s have come to be uniquely important in the direct-to-consumer channel, which until now, pharmaceuticals hadn’t had much exposure to.
While a head-to-head study pitting the Wegovy pill and Foundayo against each other has yet to be conducted, other trials have shown the former to lead to more weight loss on average.
