Novo Nordisk’s Twin-Track Strategy: Price Cuts and Pill Power
11.06.2026 - 12:01:37 | boerse-global.de
Novo Nordisk is pressing on multiple fronts at once, slashing US list prices for its blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs while simultaneously rolling out its oral Wegovy tablet to new markets. The moves reflect a company trying to navigate intensifying competition and a stock trading nearly 47% below its 52-week peak.
The US price reset
From 1 January 2027, Novo Nordisk will cut the monthly list prices of Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus to a uniform $675. For Wegovy that represents a roughly 50% reduction; for Ozempic the drop is around 35%. The aim is to ease the burden on patients with high out-of-pocket costs, while existing rebate programmes remain in place.
The pricing gambit comes as the group faces mounting pressure from rivals. Roche recently posted positive phase 2 data for its dual GLP-1/GIP agonist CT-388, with the highest dose achieving a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 22.5% after 48 weeks. Phase 3 trials are expected to start in the second quarter of 2026. Novo Nordisk is pushing ahead with its own pipeline candidate, Amycretin, a dual GLP-1 and amylin receptor agonist that has also delivered positive phase 2 results. The Danish group is meanwhile expanding its partnership with OpenAI, extending the collaboration from drug discovery to clinical data analysis.
Oral Wegovy’s rapid take-off
While the price cuts are a medium-term move, the near-term story revolves around the oral formulation of Wegovy. In just five months since its US launch, doctors have written more than three million prescriptions for the pill — equivalent to one script every five seconds. Crucially, over 80% of patients are new to GLP-1 therapy, meaning the tablet is expanding the overall obesity treatment market rather than cannibalising Novo Nordisk’s injectable franchise.
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The pill generated roughly $355 million in first-quarter revenue. Now it is heading overseas. The United Arab Emirates is the first international market to receive the oral Wegovy, with a distinct advantage over the injection: the tablet requires no continuous refrigeration, a critical logistical benefit in hot climates. Additional countries are slated to follow in the second half of 2026. The company is awaiting final approval from the European Medicines Agency, having already received clearance in May for the high-dose injectable Wegovy.
Clinical data supports the oral strategy. In a head-to-head study, patients taking the Wegovy pill lost an average of 16.6% of their body weight, compared with 12.4% for Eli Lilly’s experimental oral candidate. Separately, a large Novo Nordisk study involving over 64,000 adults compared Ozempic 2 mg with Lilly’s Mounjaro: 60.5% of Ozempic patients achieved at least a 5% weight reduction versus 55.3% for Mounjaro.
Legal tussles and a buyback
In South Africa, Novo Nordisk is taking legal action against compounding pharmacy iDexis, which the company says distributed unapproved semaglutide-containing products. Authorities have confiscated products and ordered a recall. At the same time, Novo Nordisk cut the price of the lowest Wegovy dose in the South African market from 3,090 rand to 1,873 rand.
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On the shareholder front, a multi-billion-dollar share buyback programme has been running since February. By early June the company had already repurchased nearly 5 billion Danish kroner worth of shares, within a total framework of up to 15 billion kroner.
Stock at a crossroads
The shares are currently trading at €37.30, some 47% below the 52-week high of €70.13 reached in June 2025. The stock is down roughly 16% year to date. A modest daily gain of 0.5% hints at some stabilisation, while the relative strength index of about 50 signals neither overbought nor oversold conditions. The critical question now is whether the US price-cutting strategy will permanently squeeze margins or be offset by higher volume — an answer the next quarterly results will begin to provide.
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