Novo Nordisk bets on the new CEO to regain drug weight loss in Eli Lilly

Novo Nordisk Bank on a new leadership to help him recover the crown from the booming market of weight loss medicines.

Friday, the Danish drug manufacturer announced Friday that the longtime CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen was moving, while his injection of obesity Wegovy loses ground Eli LillyRival treatment, zepbound. While Eli Lilly entered the market later, he emerges as the first runner in a space which, according to some analysts, could be worth more than $ 150 billion in the early 2030s.

The new senior Novo Nordisk leader will have to help the company fill the gap with Eli Lilly, repel emerging competitors and overcome other challenges. The next CEO will have to direct the company's plans to launch a new list of weight loss drugs before the expiration of Wegovy's key patents and manage the impact of negotiations on Medicare drug prices and the planned prices of President Donald Trump on pharmaceutical products.

We do not know who will take the place of Jørgensen, but the company said that it was considering internal and external candidates.

“While Novo [Nordisk] I took an early advance in the obesity duopoly, they sold the ground at a critical time when more competitors approached quickly, “said BMO capital markets on Friday, in a note, referring to other drug manufacturers that were running to market their own obesity treatments.

Novo Nordisk once held the title of the most precious European company – worth $ 615 billion to its peak – driven by the demand for Wegovy's demand and its diabetes counterpart, Ozempic.

But the enthusiasm of investors has faded after Eli Lilly acquired a larger share of market data and clinical trials on the next wave of Novo Nordisk obesity drugs. Novo Nordisk's shares have plunged more than 50% in the past year, destroying more than $ 300 billion in market value.

Novo Nordisk's shares are still increasing by more than 250% since Jørgensen took office as CEO in January 2017. But Eli Lilly's shares have gained approximately 800% since the same month, when CEO Dave Ricks has taken control of the company.

The assembly pressure also came from the powerful Novo Nordisk foundation, the majority shareholder of the Danish drug manufacturer. The Foundation recently urged the leaders of Novo Nordisk to consider an “accelerated succession of the CEO” and put pressure for a greater representation of the board of directors, according to a statement.

Novo Nordisk said on Friday that he had concluded jointly with Jørgensen that it was time to find a new CEO after the foundation's demand, recent market challenges and the sharp drop in the company's action. Jørgensen said he had not seen his ouster coming and was informed that recently, according to several reports.

A few days before the announcement, Novo Nordisk reduced its sales and profits forecasts for the first time since the launch of Wegovy four years ago.

Seigerman said that it is not yet clear if a new senior manager would be able to meet the challenges of the company.

“Although he can satisfy some so that investors stimulate a transition from the CEO, without significant change in the short-term strategy, we continue to see a path more difficult to follow,” he said.

Novo Nordisk has sold the market share to Eli Lilly, even if the traillary zepbounds of Zepbounds from Wegovy.

The Mounjaro of the Diabetes of Diabetes of Eli Lilly and the Mounjaro are now more than half of the American prescriptions for the so-called GLP-1, which imitate hormones to disrupt appetite and regulate blood sugar, according to a distinct note from Seigerman earlier this month.

This exceeds the combined share of 46% of Wegovy and Ozempic of Novo Nordisk.

The new American prescriptions of Zepbound exceeded those of Wegovy for the first time in early March 2024, only a few months after the launch of Eli Lilly's medication, Reuters reported at the time. In August, some analysts estimated that Zepbound had captured 40% of the American weight loss medication market, hot on Wegovy's heels.

This “traction by share of the market clearly shows that doctors and patients prefer Zepbound” in Wegovy, wrote Bernstein Courtney Breen in a note in early May. Real data and a head-to-face clinical trial showed that Zepbound causes weight loss more than Wegovy.

Novo Nordisk also had trouble convincing Wall Street that his new generation weight loss drug pipeline can help him maintain his position on the market, especially after Wegovy loses exclusivity and drug manufacturers can sell cheaper generic alternatives.

For example, Novo Nordisk has said on several occasions to investors that his Cagrisea shot, which should be launched in 2026, would help people lose 25% or more from their body weight. But the once weekly medication did not succeed in respecting these forecasts in December 2024, sending actions of Plaging.

In April, the company said it had applied for American approval from an oral version of Semaglutide, the active ingredient of Wegovy and Ozempic. This occurs while drug manufacturers rush to develop more practical weight loss pills, which could represent $ 50 billion in the market in the years to come, according to certain estimates of the analyst.

But Seigerman, in a separate note in April, said that Novo Nordisk did not have a clear strategy for his portfolio of medicines with oral obesity. He said that “would dispute growth at the end of the decade”, especially since Eli Lilly's own obesity pill impresses investors and the centimeters of market entry.

Unlike oral semaglutide, the Eli Lilly pill is a drug with a small molecule and not a peptide medicine. This means that Eli Lilly's medication is absorbed more easily into the body and does not require food restrictions as does the oral semaglutide, which can be a notable advantage for the company.

Seigerman acknowledged that the experimental experimental pill of Novo Nordisk, Amycretine, could be competitive in the long term. But he said it will not happen soon, because the drug should not be launched for several years.

Apart from pipeline problems, Novo Nordisk and the rest of the pharmaceutical industry are struggling with the Trump administration's ambitions to reduce the prices of medicines and bring manufacturing in the United States, Trump said that he planned to impose prices on pharmaceuticals imported in the United States and has signed an executive decree that aims to reduce the prices of drugs by attaching them to the lowest prices and has signed an executive decree which aims to reduce the prices of drugs by attaching them to the lowest and signed prices.

Novo Nordisk clearly indicated that its strategy remains unchanged despite the steep exit from Jørgensen.

“We have a solid product portfolio with a lot of potential,” the chairman of the Novo Nordisk Board of Directors said on Friday with analysts. “We have an experienced management team to continue to evolve and advance the business with a long -term perspective.”

But Seigerman said that the decision to exchange CEOs seems to “draw attention to pivots in this strategy that might be necessary”.

Investors have already seen potential signs of this change, according to Seigerman.

Novo Nordisk has long prioritized therapies based on peptides. But the recent conclusion of the company indicates that it is “heavier on oral solutions with small molecules for the obesity market,” said Seigerman.

The company announced last week a license agreement with the American biotechnology company Sepnna for experimental pills of small molecule for obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases.

But these pills are at the start of development and these products come from the years that enter the market, which means that the agreement is always risky.

The same can be said of several of the other recent links of Novo Nordisk.

For example, Novo Nordisk in March said that he had agreed to pay up to $ 2 billion for the rights of an early experimental drug from the Chinese pharmaceutical company United Laboratories International.

The newly acquired medication is a clear potential competitor for the backing of Eli Lilly triple obesity drugs, as they both use a three -part approach to promote weight loss and blood sugar regulation. But the Restitide is in clinical trials at an advanced stage, which means that it could enter the market years before Novo Nordisk medication.