Clinical trials failed to achieve the results Novo Nordisk expected, causing its stock to fall more than 22% after the announcement.
The Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, known for its best-sellers Ozempic and Wegovy, treatments for diabetes and weight loss, fell by more than 20% on Friday on the stock market, after the disappointing results of a new study on another drug . The laboratory, among the largest European market capitalizations, said that clinical trials showed that overweight subjects using Cagrisema lost an average of 22.7% of their weight during the 68 weeks of the trial, compared to 2. 3% for those who used a placebo. The result did not reach the 25% expected by Novo Nordisk, which caused its shares to fall by more than 22% after the announcement. According to the laboratory, the trial included 3,417 obese or overweight people with one or more comorbidities.
Novo Nordisk is however “encouraged” by the results, said Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president of development, quoted in a press release. Thanks to the information collected during this clinical trial, “we plan to further explore the additional weight loss potential of Cagrisema”announces the same source. In November, the Danish giant announced a 21% jump in its third quarter net profit, to 27.3 billion crowns (3.70 billion euros) for a turnover up 22%, to 60 billion crowns.
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Leader in the weight loss market
The laboratory, however, indicated that it was constrained by its production capacities, before announcing on Monday that it was investing 1.2 billion euros in the construction of a new factory in Denmark. In the first nine months of the year, its sales of the anti-obesity drug Wegovy, approved in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and the United States, rose 42%. Those of its other bestseller Ozempic, an injectable treatment for diabetes that has become popular for its slimming properties, jumped 54% over the same period.
Novo Nordisk holds 74% of the growing weight loss treatment market. This field remains dominated by Novo Nordisk and the American Eli Lilly, whose Mounjaro, based like Ozempic on the semaglutide molecule, has now been marketed in France since November, according to the health authorities. The World Obesity Federation predicts that more than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese by 2035, with an economic impact that could then exceed $4 billion per year.
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