Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk said Wednesday it is trimming its growth expectations for its leading obesity and diabetes treatments as competition intensifies and pricing pressures mount in the weight loss market.
Net profit for the quarter came in at 20 billion Danish kroner ($3.1 billion) in line with the 20.12 billion Danish kroner anticipated by analysts in a FactSet poll.
Diabetes and obesity care were a key growth driver following the uptake of Wegovy and Ozempic, however the company lowered its expectations for growth, citing prescription trends, competition and pricing pressure.
Novo shares fell 4.5% at the opening bell on Wednesday, before reversing course to trade 0.4% higher. They are down 44.8% year-to-date.
Novo narrowed its full-year guidance for the fourth time this year, saying it now expects sales growth within the range of 8% to 11% at constant exchange rates, compared to a previous forecast of 8% to 14%. It also lowered its expectations for operating profit growth of 4% to 10% to a new forecast of 4% to 7%.
Sales of its blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy rose 18% year-on-year to hit 20.35 billion Danish kroner in the three months to September, slightly below the 21.35 billion kroner expected by analysts.
Operating profit for the first nine months of 2025 came in 10% higher compared to the same period the year prior, at 95.9 billion kroner, though the company noted that this would have increased by 21% if it wasn’t for restructuring costs of around 9 billion kroner.
“While we delivered robust sales growth in the first nine months of 2025, the lower growth expectations for our GLP-1 treatments have led to a narrowing of our guidance,” Mike Doustdar, president and CEO said in a statement.
Doustdar, speaking to CNBC’s Charlotte Reed in an interview from Novo’s headquarters, added that the firm’s obesity drugs serve one million patients in the U.S., which is a third of the market “everyone is fighting” over.
Analysts at UBS expect Novo’s struggles to impact its fourth-quarter performance and 2026, but remains neutral on the stock. It has increased its price target to 340 kroner per share, up from 315.2 kroner prior to the results.
“The announcement of an agreed IRA direct negotiation price for only being a low single digit impact to sales growth should be a modest relief albeit given the headlines last night,” analysts wrote. “We could expect that Novo has taken a larger price cut on Wegovy to offset Ozempic price.”
Novo’s Copenhagen-listed shares have tumbled more than 50% over the course of this year, as a slew of headwinds has shaken investor confidence in what was once Europe’s most valuable firm.
Alongside a series of disappointing trial results, increasing competition in the obesity drug space and challenges arising from U.S. policies on drug pricing and tariffs, Novo has been contending with leadership shakeups and pushback against a key acquisition.
Analysts, as a result, have been mixed on the stock. Jefferies recently cut its rating to underperform while Berenberg is positive on the stock, saying Novo has hit “peak uncertainty.”
“Novo’s superior growth profile and best-in-class R&D returns warrants a higher valuation premium to its peers,” the bank said.
Metsera bid
Novo launched a rival bid to acquire American obesity biotech firm MetseraPfizer.filed a second lawsuit against Novo and Metsera, arguing that Novo’s bid for the smaller company was anticompetitive.
A spokesperson for Novo said in a statement that Pfizer’s allegations were “false and without merit.”
Novo then ramped up its bid for Metsera on Tuesday, saying it was now offering up to $10 billion compared to the earlier offer of around $9 billion.
“Novo Nordisk believes that the proposal, including the structure of the transaction, complies with all applicable laws and is in the best interest of patients who will benefit from our commitment to innovation, as well as Metsera’s shareholders,” the company said in a statement, noting that the deal was also subject to the term’s of Pfizer’s merger agreement with Metsera.
Metsera said on Tuesday that the revised offer was “superior” to a revised bid made by Pfizer.
Back in Denmark, Doustdar told CNBC that the company would not have pursued Metsera if it was not “confident that we could close it.”
“I have huge confidence in our own pipeline, we have some of the best pipeline in this industry. But, when your ambition is large, when your thinking about hundreds of millions of patients that are still unmet, that have an unmet need and not treated, then no pipeline is good enough,” Doustdar added.
“We have been looking at Mestera for a long time and they have some of the best complimentary drugs to our own pipeline and we look very much forward — if we can acquire them — to integrate that into our own pipeline so that we can actually go broad and expand the market even more so,” he said.
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