Novo Nordisk Stock Falls After Earnings. It Cut Guidance on These Fears.

Novo Nordisk makes the weight-loss drug Wegovy. Above, a production line of Wegovy injection pens at Novo’s plant in Hillerod, Denmark. (Charlotte de la Fuente/Bloomberg)

Key Points

• Novo Nordisk’s third-quarter results missed estimates, with earnings of 4.50 Danish krone per share on 75 billion DKK revenue.
• The company lowered its 2025 sales growth guidance to 8% to 11% at constant exchange rates, down from 8% to 14%.
• Novo Nordisk is in a bidding war with Pfizer for Metsera, with an offer that could reach 10 billion dollars, facing an antitrust lawsuit.

Novo Nordisk stock slid Wednesday after the Danish drugmaker’s third-quarter results missed estimates, and it trimmed its full-year guidance. Notably, sales growth for its blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy keeps slowing in the race against Eli Lilly .

The earnings report comes during an extraordinarily turbulent time for Novo, which has a history of stability. In just the past few months, the biopharma company has fired its CEO, replaced all of the independent directors on its board, and announced plans to layoff 9,000 workers.

Last week, Novo launched a startling bidding war against Pfizer for a promising obesity biotech called to snatch Metsera . Pfizer had reached a tentative deal to buy Metasera in September.

On a post-results call Wednesday, Novo’s new CEO, Mike Doustdar, told investors the company’s new strategy would be to focus tightly on obesity, diabetes, and related conditions. He also said the company had dropped “several non-core assets” during the quarter.

“We will intensify our commercial efforts to strengthen competitiveness,” Doustdar said.

Still, the strategy wasn’t enough to ease shareholders’ worries about slowing growth for Novo’s two popular weight-loss drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic: The company’s American depositary receipt was down 2.9%.

CFO Karsten Munk Knudsen told Barron’s that the Metsera bid was in line with the new strategy and defended the extraordinarily large offer, announced Wednesday, that could see Novo paying as much at $10 billion.

“We are confident we can find the relevant niche for this asset,” Knudsen said. “It’s a market price, and we wouldn’t do it unless we believe we can create value for our shareholders.”

Knudsen also defended the structure of the proposed Metsera deal, which calls for Novo paying $62.20 a share up front for an approximate enterprise value of $6.7 billion—before the deal had received regulatory approval.

On Tuesday, a Pfizer spokesperson called the proposed structure “an illegal attempt by a foreign company to do an end run around antitrust laws.” Pfizer has sued to stop the deal on antitrust grounds.

“We’re confident that this deal fulfills all criteria to be legal,” Knudsen said. “The structure of the deal, while a little bit unusual, is a function of negotiations between us and Metsera.”

For the third quarter, Novo missed estimates on the top and the bottom lines. It reported earnings of 4.50 Danish krone (69 U.S. cents) a share on revenue of 75 billion DKK ($11.5 billion). Analysts had expected Novo to report earnings of 4.90 DKK a share on sales of 76.5 billion DKK, according to FactSet.

The company lowered its 2025 guidance. It now expects sales growth of 8% to 11% this year at a constant exchange rate, or between roughly 4% and 7% as reported, down from its prior guidance of 8% to 14%. FactSet consensus estimates have 2025 sales coming it at 313 billion DKK, up nearly 8% from last year.

On operating profit, the company is now projecting growth of 4% to 7%, down from its prior guidance of 4% to 10%.

Novo attributed the lowered guidance to lower expectations for its GLP-1 treatments for weight loss and obesity, including Wegovy and Ozempic.

Sales of Wegovy were 20.3 billion DKK for the quarter, short of the 21.2 billion DKK consensus estimate, according to FactSet. Sales of Ozempic were 30.7 billion DKK, just above the 30.3 billion DKK consensus estimate.

“After some years of hyper growth, then we’ve seen deceleration of growth rates for the company,” Knudsen told Barron’s. “It’s really a function of our growth expectations for our GLP-1 franchise in diabetes and obesity. And based on that runway, we expect continued deceleration into the fourth quarter.”

Earnings were hit by 9 billion DKK of one-off restructuring costs after Novo announced plans to slash 9,000 jobs, or 11%, of its workforce.

In the past few months, Novo has been the most turbulent, high-drama name in the entire pharmaceutical industry, if not the entire healthcare sector.

You’ll need a checklist to keep track of all the Novo chaos: a one-day 21.8% selloff in July on the back of a huge guidance cut, the appointment of a new CEO, and the shock announcement in October that all of the board’s independent directors were stepping down. That’s not to mention its $4.5 billion acquisition of biotech Akero Therapeutics and the constant hyping of a new oral version of its weight-loss drug Wegovy. And, of course, the fight with Pfizer for Metsera

Novo’s ADRs are down more than 65% since July 2024, as the air has leaked from the weight-loss bubble. Novo has found itself losing its two-man race against Eli Lilly.

Novo and Lilly, according to The Wall Street Journal, are negotiating with the White House on the prices of their obesity drugs, which would lower the price for small doses and would allow Medicare to cover the drugs for weight loss.

Knudsen declined to say whether Novo has a deal with the Trump administration.

“I believe that both parties have the intent of providing better access, and more access, to patients suffering from chronic diseases, and in our case with the GLP-1’s in the U.S.,” he said. “I cannot say more about that at this point in time, but there will be a deal to be announced at some point.”

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com