The Danish maker of Ozempic and Wegovy reported a 25 percent increase in sales to $40.6 billion, but said it expected slower growth this year.
Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, capped off a somewhat turbulent 2024, reporting profit and revenue on Wednesday that comfortably beat Wall Street expectations. But the drugmaker said it expected sales growth to slow in 2025, as competition increases.
Novo Nordisk retains its title as Europe’s most valuable company, but its share price has dropped about 40 percent since it peaked last June as analysts worried about uncertainty in demand for obesity drugs and the performance of new drugs in trials.
“Last year was a tale of two halves,” said Emily Field, an analyst at Barclays. The first half of 2024 offered “lots of overall excitement.”
But then data suggested that prescriptions for obesity drugs were growing slowly in the United States, and a few trial results for drugs in the company’s pipeline came in lower than expected, Ms. Field added. President Trump’s election also weighed on pharmaceutical companies in general amid potential changes to health care policy.
There’s been “a lot of uncertainty” she said as investors grew more concerned about whether sales of obesity drugs could really meet the industry’s lofty expectations of a market larger than $100 billion in the coming decades. Novo Nordisk’s main competitor is the American drugmaker Eli Lilly, which also sells obesity drugs.
On Wednesday, Novo Nordisk said its revenue jumped 25 percent last year to 290 billion Danish kroner, or $40.6 billion, driven by growing sales in the United States, and reported profit of more than 100 billion Danish kroner.