Just when Novo Nordisk was appearing to recover, investors faced another setback as the pharmaceutical company unexpectedly released its 2026 projections late Tuesday, leading to a drop in share prices.
Novo Nordisk’s shares dropped by 18% in Copenhagen on Wednesday morning, reflecting losses observed in its American depositary receipts the previous day and erasing the gains made this year.
“Investors should be prepared for a decline before recovery,” CEO Mike Doustdar remarked on CNBC’s “Early Edition Europe” on Wednesday, emphasizing the challenges posed by considerably lower U.S. pricing on its leading weight loss drug Wegovy.
“We haven’t elaborated on the extent of that – based on the guidance we provided that range.”
This situation comes after Novo’s forecast indicated that both 2026 sales and operating profit would decrease between 5% and 13%, significantly worse than what analysts anticipated.
Analysts from Barclays noted some might interpret the guidance as a “kitchen sink” scenario that it would surpass, “but we remind that the same was claimed last year, and this turned out not to be accurate.”
Last July, Novo drastically reduced its 2025 forecast citing a tough U.S. market, which caused shares to plunge 23% that day.
A U-shaped rebound?
“We are enhancing affordability for patients, millions who currently need GLP-1 products but cannot afford them. To achieve that in the short term, you must face challenges. However, there is also a significant long-term benefit ahead,” Doustdar shared with CNBC.
The firm has raised concerns regarding pricing pressures in its primary market, the U.S., due to competition from compounding pharmacies that provide cheaper alternatives to semaglutide – the active component in Wegovy and Ozempic – alongside main competitor U.S.-based Eli Lilly.
However, optimism surged early this year as the introduction of the Wegovy pill in the U.S. exceeded even Novo’s expectations. “We anticipated it would be the best in terms of efficacy at 16.6%, and we believed it would perform well, but we never expected that after four weeks of launch, we would have 170,000 individuals on the pill,” Doustdar remarked.
“Regardless of how successful the initial phase is, the impact on existing business due to pricing overshadows the remarkable launch of the pill.”
While Novo has strived to align expectations ahead of its full-year results, and also provided forecasts for the upcoming year, the market was taken by surprise.
“The question becomes whether the rebound from this point will resemble a Nike swoosh or a U-shaped recovery,” noted HSBC’s Rajesh Kumar.
