Catenaa, Thursday, January 01, 2026- Novo Nordisk shift from a market darling to a serious underperformer has set the stage for a transitional 2026 as the Danish drugmaker fights to regain investor confidence in its weight loss business.
Novo’s stock just experienced the worst year on record since it began trading on the Copenhagen stock exchange over three decades ago.
Multiple reasons lie behind the dramatic drop: a series of guidance cuts, strides by chief rival Eli Lilly, a leadership upheaval, and cheap copycat drugs flooding the crucial US market.
With just about a week to go until 2026, Novo announced that its new weight loss pill under the brand name Wegovy had been approved in the US, making it the first oral GLP-1 treatment approved for weight loss.
It sent shares up nearly 10% as investors banked on Novo being able to, at least partly, hold Eli Lilly and others at bay.
Novo’s position as the first company to launch an oral option could help it make up some of the ground it’s lost over the past year in the GLP-1 space.
Analysts mostly agreed that the Wegovy pill’s approval was a big deal, even though many had already expected a positive decision before the end of the year.
Eli Lilly is expected to get its own weight loss pill orforglipron approved by the US Food and Drug Administration by no later than the second quarter of this year, and investors will closely watch how that competition plays out.
Wegovy-in-a-pill, as Novo calls the oral version of the blockbuster injectable, has shown that patients lose on average 16.6% of their body weight over 64 weeks. Meanwhile, orforglipron, averages 12.4% over 72 weeks.
