Novo Nordisk (NVO) inventory was down pre-market after the corporate missed on high and backside traces of second quarter earnings Wednesday. The report comes only a week after the corporate introduced a downward revision in its 2025 steerage.
The corporate barely missed on income, reporting $11.95 billion, in comparison with $11.97 billion anticipated by Wall Road. It additionally reported earnings per share (EPS) of $5.96, in comparison with estimates of $6.06 per share. The GLP-1 maker of diabetes drug Ozempic and weight reduction drug Wegovy, nonetheless reported gross sales have been up 16% yr over yr.
The 2 blockbuster medicine introduced in income of $7.9 billion of the overall reported within the quarter, or about two-thirds.
The corporate beforehand introduced a discount in gross sales progress, from 13%-21% to eight%-14% this yr. It has been extra acutely impacted by the continuing gross sales of compounded weight reduction medicine, as its semaglutide ingredient has been most generally copied. The firm introduced 14 new lawsuits Tuesday, including to a complete of 132 fits in 40 states, to close down the copycat enterprise.
Outgoing CEO Lars Jørgensen mentioned it has been a key purpose behind the corporate’s muted progress, regardless of it having had the first-to-market benefit a couple of years in the past.
On a name early Tuesday, he repeated the declare that extra that a million sufferers have been on copycat variations of the drug.
“We’re speaking about a couple of million individuals utilizing unauthorized … semaglutide knockoffs, primarily produced in China, not high quality managed in any form or kind, or permitted by the FDA,” Jørgensen mentioned.
However Novo additionally has a contest downside and a value menace downside as near-term headwinds.
Eli Lilly’s (LLY) new affected person prescriptions are about 60% — and that transfer is regardless of Novo clinching a take care of CVS (CVS) to be the only weight reduction drug on the formulary. As well as, Novo’s medicine, together with Ozempic, will probably be going through value negotiations subsequent yr for Medicare.
Most not too long ago, an addition type of unfavorable strain arrived in a letter from President Donald Trump. Novo was considered one of 17 firms that acquired a letter demanding Novo present the bottom value it provides to growing nations to the Medicaid inhabitants.
Jørgensen mentioned that Medicaid enrollees are already receiving a few of the lowest costs and decrease than in Europe.
He didn’t reply to the demand within the letter for direct-to-consumer decrease money pricing to be out there to all sufferers, however famous that Novo’s DTC platform, NovoCare, market penetration has been 10% since launching in March.
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior well being reporter at Yahoo Finance, masking all issues pharma, insurance coverage, supplier companies, digital well being, PBMs, and well being coverage and politics. That features GLP-1s, after all. Comply with Anjalee as AnjKhem on social media platforms X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky @AnjKhem.
