Novo Nordisk betting on new CEOs to regain weight loss -drug edge over Eli Lilly
A look at the logo of Novo Nordisk in the company's office in Bagsvaerd on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, March 8, 2024.
Tom Little | Reuters
Novo Nordisk Supports fresh leadership to regain the crown on the booming market for weight loss.
The Danish drug maker on Friday announced abrupt that long -time CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen will resign Eli Lilly'S rival treatment, zepbound. While Eli Lilly came into the market later, it develops in a room as the leader, some analysts in the early 2030s believe that they could be worth more than $ 150 billion.
Novo Nordisk's new top manager must help the company to close the gap against Eli Lilly, to ward off aspiring rivals and to cope with other challenges. The next CEO must lead the company's plans to start a new series of weight loss medication before the most important patents for Wegovy have expired, and to manage the effects of Medicare drug price negotiations and the planned tariffs of President Donald Trump on pharmaceuticals.
It is unclear who will take Jørgensen's place, but the company said that both internal and external candidates mention.
“During Novo [Nordisk] In the duopoly of obesity, they took on an early lead and have placed the foundation stone in a critical moment when more competitors approach quickly.
Novo Nordisk once kept the title of the most valuable company in Europe – worth 615 billion US dollars at its peak – driven by the jumping demand for Wegovy and his diabetes counterpart Ozempic.
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Novo Nordisk's shares fell last year when Eli Lilly wins on his rival place.
But the enthusiasm of the investors faded after Eli Lilly had a larger proportion of the market and the clinical studies on the next wave of obesity medications from Novo Nordisk who underwent investors. Novo Nordisk's shares fell by more than 50% last year and excreted more than 300 billion US dollars in market value.
The Novo Nordisk share has still increased by more than 250%, as Jørgensen took over the CEO in January 2017. However, Eli Lilly's shares have increased by about 800% since the same month when CEO Dave Ricks took over the company.
The assembly pressure also came from the mighty Novo Nordisk Foundation, the controlling shareholder of the Danish drug maker. The foundation recently asked Novo Nordisk Nordisk to take into account an “accelerated CEO succession” and, according to a declaration, be advised on a greater representation of the board of directors on Friday.
Novo Nordisk said on Friday that it ended with Jørgensen that it was time to find a new CEO after the foundation's request to find the recent market challenges and the strong decline in the company's share price. Jørgensen said that he had not seen his fall come and, according to several reports, was recently informed about it on Friday.
Days before the announcement, Novo Nordisk lowered his sales and profit forecast for the first time since the start of Wegovy four years ago.
Seogerman said it was still unclear whether a new top manager can master the company's challenges.
“Although some could satisfy some of the CEO without making a sensible change in the short -term strategy, we continue to see a more difficult way forward,” he said.
The competition increases before drug entries
Novo Nordisk broke off Eli Lilly, although Zepbound's dollar sales still follow the Wegovy Wegovy Wegovy.
Zepbound and Eli Lillys Diabetes Drug Mounjaro are now forming more than half of the US regulations for so-called GLP-1S, the hormones imitating the appetite and regulating the blood sugar, as can be seen from a separate note from Seerkerman at the beginning of this month.
This passes the combined 46% share of Nordo Nordisks Wegovy and Ozempic.
A combination image shows an injection poison from Zepbound, Eli Lilly's weight loss drug and car from Wegovy, which were made by Novo Nordisk.
Hollie Adams | Reuters
Reuters reported that new US recipes from Zepbound exceeded those who were for the first time for the first time in early March 2024 after the start of Eli Lilly's Drug. Until August, some analysts estimated that Zepbound had recorded 40% of the US market for weight loss -drugs.
This “market division clearly shows that doctors and patients prefer Zepbound,” the amber analyst Courtney Breen wrote in a note in early May. Data in practice and a clinical study with a head-to-head study have shown that Zepbound leads to more weight loss than Wegovy.
Novo Nordisk has also tried to convince Wall Street that his pipeline can help weight loss medication of the next generation to keep their position on the market, especially after Wegovy loses exclusivity and can sell drug makers cheaper generic alternatives.
For example, Novo Nordisk repeatedly said that the Cagrisema shot, which is expected to be introduced in 2026, would help people lose 25% or more of their body weight. But the one -week drug did not do justice to this forecast in December 2024 and sent in the company's shares.
The company announced in April that the US permit of an oral version of Semaglutid, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, was submitted. It comes to develop as a drug manufacturer to develop more comfortable weight loss pills, which, according to some analyst estimates, could make up for the market's 50 billion dollars in the coming years.
In a separate note in April, Novo Nordisk said no clear strategy for his oral medication portfolio. He said that “the growth is probably questioned at the end of the decade”, especially when Eli Lilly's own obesity pill impressed the investors and closer to entry into the market.
In contrast to the oral semaglutid, Eli Lillys Pille is a small medicine and not a peptide medication. This means that Eli Lilly's drug is more easily absorbed in the body and does not require dietary restrictions such as the oral semaglutid, which can be a remarkable advantage for the company.
Seogerman admitted that Nordo Nordisks, experimental little Molecule pill, could be competitive in the long term. But he said that this will not happen soon because the medication will probably start for several years.
Outside of pipeline problems, Novo Nordisk and the rest of the pharmaceutical industry sit down with the ambitions of the Trump administration, to lower the drug prices and to bring the production to the United States that he plans to import tariffs to the recording of pharmaceuticals into the US Integrating drug prices to the award winners brought abroad abroad abroad at the lowest price prices.
Signs of a changing strategy
Novo Nordisk made it clear that his strategy remains unchanged despite Jørgensen's abrupt exit.
“We have a strong product portfolio with a lot of potential,” said Helge Lund, CEO of Novo Nordisk, on Friday when calling analysts. “We have an experienced management team that develops and drives the company a long -term perspective.”
But Seizerman said the decision to exchange the CEOs seems to “draw attention to turns in this strategy”.
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According to Seigerman, investors have already seen potential signs of this shift.
Novo Nordisk has long had prioritized therapeutic base. However, the company's most recent business points out that it is “more difficult to find oral solutions for small molecules for the obesity market,” said Seizerman.
Last week, the company announced a license agreement with the US biotech company Septerna for experimental small molecules pills for obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases.
But these pills are in the early development and these products are years of entering the market, which means that the agreement is still risky.
The same applies to some of the other recent connections from Novo Nordisk.
For example, Novo Nordisk said in March that it was ready to pay up to 2 billion US dollars for the rights to an early experimental drug for Chinese pharmaceutical companies United Laboratories.
The newly acquired medication is a clear potential competitor of Eli Lilly's so-called triple G-fat-lane medication retatrutide, since both use a three-track approach to promote weight loss and to regulate blood sugar. However, retatrutid is in clinical studies in the late stage, which means that it can occur years before the Novo Nordisk medication.
