Novo Nordisk shares tumble as weight-deficit drug trial data disappoints

Novo Nordisk’s shares fell sharply on Friday as disappointing results from tests of its latest obesity drug wiped about €90bn off the assessment of Europe’s largest business by economy capitalisation.

CagriSema helped patients misplace an average of 22.7 per cent of their body weight in a late-stage trial, Novo Nordisk said on Friday, only marginally beating the results of Mounjaro, a rival treatment from Eli Lilly.

Novo Nordisk had targeted an average of 25 per cent weight deficit from its recent drug.

Martin Holst Lange, the business’s executive vice-president for advancement, said that only 57 per cent of patients had received the highest dose of the drug. “We are encouraged by the weight-deficit profile of CagriSema,” he said.

The drugmaker’s shares were down as much as 27 per cent in mid-morning market activity in Denmark before mounting a partial recovery to trade 20 per cent lower.

Barclays analyst Emily Field said the economy was having an “emotional reaction” to Novo Nordisk not hitting the 25 per cent weight deficit bar that it had set. 
 
“There may be a management credibility issue, in a way, of not conference this bar,” she said.
 
Field added that the business had told her it was disappointed and was trying to work out why so many patients had not taken the highest dose of the drug. It could be because of side-effects or simply that they were content with the amount of weight that they were losing, she said.

Novo Nordisk is planning a recent trial in the first half of 2025 to explore how to boost the doses and make the potential for additional weight deficit.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are competing for dominance in a economy that grew sevenfold in just three years to $24bn in 2023, according to data analytics firm Iqvia.

The weight deficit and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic have transformed the fortunes of Novo Nordisk, leading it more than triple in worth in the history five years. Barclays had previously modelled $49bn in peak sales for CagriSema, in 2038, almost double its sales approximate for Ozempic and Wegovy in 2025, their peak year.

But before the trial data was published, some investors worried that Novo Nordisk’s assessment was unsustainably high and that the wider obesity drugs economy might not be as valuable as expected.

Some have questioned whether US president-elect Donald Trump’s administration will make the economy tougher for weight deficit drugs.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee for health secretary, has been critical of using drugs, rather than changing diet, to control obesity.

Novo Nordisk had hoped its “next creation” weight-deficit drug could navigator the field, after its shares had struggled to keep pace with Eli Lilly and it suffered a setback from disappointing results for an experimental weight-deficit pill in September.

“CagriSema is really significant for us,” chief executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen told the monetary Times in November. “It’s a next-creation product and it has the potential to be best in class.”

Patients receiving Mounjaro, also called Zepbound in the US, lost an average of 22.5 per cent of their weight in phase 3 trials when taken as part of a regime of improved diet and exercise. Those on Wegovy, also made by Novo Nordisk, lost an average of about 15 per cent in similar conditions.

About 40 per cent of patients in the CagriSema trial achieved 25 per cent weight deficit over the 68 weeks.

CagriSema combines semaglutide, the energetic ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, with cagrilintide, another hormone that makes people feel fuller for longer.

The trial of 3,417 people taking a weekly injection found that the most ordinary side effects were gastrointestinal, the vast majority of which were mild and moderate and diminished over period.

Novo Nordisk expects to file for regulatory approval for the drug towards the complete of next year.

Shares in rivals bounced, with Eli Lilly up as much as 10 per cent in pre-economy market activity, and biotechs with potential obesity drugs in the pipeline, such as Viking Therapeutics, also rising.

Additional reporting by George Steer in London