The ongoing boom in its weight loss medications has made the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk more confident. After an unexpectedly high profit in the first quarter, the board raised its annual targets, as the manufacturer of the weight loss syringe Wegovy announced on Thursday. “We are pleased with the sales growth in the first three months of 2024, driven by increased demand for our GLP-1-based treatments for diabetes and obesity,” said CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen.
The increased Wegovy supply in the US has now resulted in about 27,000 new patients there starting weekly injections, Jorgensen said. The US supply of starter doses has quadrupled since December. The agreed takeover of three production sites will help to meet the high demand. However, there are still bottlenecks in the USA. The diabetes drug Ozempic and the weight loss injection Wegovy helped Novo Nordisk achieve record sales and make it the most valuable listed company in Europe. The Danish central bank had even almost doubled its forecast for the country’s economic growth due to the success of the domestic pharmaceutical company.
The board is now targeting an increase in sales in local currency of between 19 and 27 percent instead of 18 to 26 percent in 2024. He expects an increase in operating profit of between 22 and 30 percent, after previously aiming for an increase of between 21 and 29 percent. “In view of the ongoing delivery bottlenecks, Novo delivered decent numbers,” commented Markus Manns, portfolio manager at Union Investment and Novo shareholder. “The forecast increase was only modest, but most people did not expect an increase at the beginning of the year.” Operating profit rose by 27 percent to 4.26 billion euros in the first quarter.
With its diabetes and weight loss medications, Novo Nordisk competes with the US company Eli Lilly, which is on the market with the diabetes drug Mounjaro and the new weight loss injection Zepbound. As volume and competition increased, Wegovy’s price “decreased slightly” in the first three months of the year, explained Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen.