Ozempic shot maker loses pounds after drug results are lacking
- It was one of Novo Nordisk’s worst days on the stock market
- Shares fell as much as 29% before the pharmaceutical giant recovered some of its losses
- The Group’s valuation has soared due to demand for Wegovy and Ozempic
Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk saw its value fall by as much as £82 billion yesterday after a trial of weight-loss drugs failed to meet expectations.
It was one of the Danish pharmaceutical giant’s worst days on the stock market, as its shares fell by as much as 29 percent.
The company later recovered some of its losses, but was still down 21 percent at the end, losing its crown as Europe’s most valuable company.
It marked a sharp setback for the group whose valuation has soared in recent years due to demand for drugs including Wegovy and Ozempic.
The company has become so important to the Danish economy that the krone weakened yesterday as foreign investors sold shares and converted the proceeds into other currencies.
Wegovy is taken as a weekly injection and makes the body think it is full. It is available on the NHS.
Sister drug Ozempic, which contains the same key ingredient, has taken off in the US. Celebrities who have used it include actress Amy Schumer and TV host Kelly Osbourne.
But investors were disappointed yesterday with the results of a trial of their next weight loss drug – a combination of Wegovy and another drug, Saxenda.
Novo Nordisk had hoped the treatment, called CagriSema, would help patients lose an average of 25 percent of their body weight. But instead, the late-stage study showed that patients lost an average of just 22.7 percent of their body weight. This has cast doubt on Novo Nordisk’s ability to reign supreme amid intense competition in the weight loss market.
The drug only slightly beat the other major weight loss drug on the market, Zepbound, known in Britain as Mounjaro. Patients taking the rival drug – made by Eli Lilly, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company – lost 22.5 percent of their weight in an earlier study.
But Martin Holst Lange, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president for development, said: “We are encouraged by CagriSema’s weight loss profile.”
Some believe the market reaction was overblown. Jakob Westh Christensen, market analyst at eToro, said: ‘This is just one study and one potential drug in Novo Nordisk’s extensive research and development portfolio.’
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