Ozempic jab maker sheds kilos after drug outcomes miss

Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk saw its value fall by as much as £82billion yesterday after a weight loss drug trial fell short of expectations.

It was one of the Danish pharma giant’s worst days on the stock market, as its shares fell by up to 29 per cent.

The company later clawed back some of its losses but was still off by 21 per cent at the close and lost its crown as Europe’s most valuable company.

It represented a sharp setback for the group whose valuation has soared over the past few years due to demand for drugs including Wegovy and Ozempic.

The company has become so important to the Danish economy that the krone weakened yesterday as foreign investors sold shares and converted the proceedings into other currencies.

Wegovy is taken as a weekly injection and tricks the body into thinking it is full. It is available on the NHS.

Sister drug Ozempic, which has the same key ingredient, has taken off in the US. Celebrities who have taken it include actress Amy Schumer and TV host Kelly Osbourne.

But investors were yesterday disappointed with the results of a trial for its next weight loss drug – a combination of Wegovy and another of its drugs, Saxenda. 

Novo Nordisk had been hoping the treatment, called CagriSema, would help patients lose an average of 25 per cent of their body weight. But instead, the late-stage trial showed patients only lost an average of 22.7 per cent of their body weight.  This has sowed seeds of doubt over Novo Nordisk’s ability to reign supreme amid fierce competition in the weight loss market. 

The drug only slightly beat the other main weight loss drug on the market, Zepbound, which is known as Mounjaro in the UK. Patients taking the rival drug – made by Eli Lilly, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company – lost 22.5 per cent of their weight in a previous trial.

But Martin Holst Lange, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice-president for development, said: ‘We are encouraged by the weight-loss profile of CagriSema.’

Some believe the market reaction was overdone. Jakob Westh Christensen, market analyst at eToro, said: ‘This is just one study and one potential drug in Novo Nordisk’s extensive research and development portfolio.’