Novo Nordisk to present updates on trial drug and Wegovy supply issue

Copenhagen — Novo Nordisk on March 7 said it would present early trial data for a highly anticipated pipeline obesity drug, and give an update on the supply of weight-loss drug Wegovy amid shortages.

In an era of unprecedented levels of obesity worldwide, Wegovy has transformed Danish drugmaker Novo, long known as a maker of insulin.

Novo is racing to increase output of the blockbuster drug Wegovy amid shortages, and in February scored a win when its parent company bought Catalent, a key manufacturing subcontractor of the product. 

Novo said in a statement that it will “update on scaling of manufacturing capacity and plans to increase patient reach” as it hosts investors and analysts at its headquarters near Copenhagen for the first strategy update since Wegovy exploded in popularity.

Its market capitalisation stood at about $560bn going into the meeting compared with about $235bn two years ago when it last held an investor day.

Novo shares are up about 15% since the company reported full-year earnings on January 31, and have risen more than three-fold since June 2021 when it launched Wegovy in the US.

Nearly half of Novo’s current valuation is based on the company’s pipeline of new experimental drugs such as amycretin, the obesity drug it will give an update for on March 7, according to calculations by Berenberg analysts last week.

Analysts had hoped Novo would provide data at Thursday’s investor meeting after announcing on January 31 that the group had successfully completed an early stage trial of that experimental drug.

At that time, Novo’s head of research and development Martin Lange told an analyst call that the company believes amycretin is “properly differentiated to whatever else is out there”.

Analysts said Novo’s shares will likely rise if the company says that it expects amycretin to cause weight loss of greater than 25% — far higher than the 15% from Wegovy — in obese people without diabetes.

Following the success of obesity and type 2 diabetes drugs from the GLP-1 class, companies including Novo are working on promising therapies in clinical trials, such as amycretin and another drug, CagriSema, which target a hunger hormone called amylin.

CagriSema consists of two subsequent injections of a GLP-1 analogue called semaglutide, the same active ingredient in obesity drug Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic and an amylin analogue. The amycretin pill combines the two modes of action in one molecule.

The company is also working on an injectable version of amycretin.

Reuters