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Novo Nordisk is officially back on the offensive. After a year of being chased by rival Eli Lilly, the Danish pharmaceutical giant just posted first-quarter results that smashed expectations, largely thanks to a massive U.S. appetite for its new weight-loss pill, Wegovy.
It turns out that while people love the results of the "skinny jab," they love the convenience of a daily tablet even more.
Novo Nordisk hiked its full-year profit guidance on Wednesday after a blowout first quarter. On a reported basis, sales jumped 32% to reach 96.8 billion Danish kroner ($15.2 billion), while operating profit surged 65% to 59.6 billion kroner.
However, those reported numbers carry a giant asterisk. They include a massive $4.2 billion one-off gain from a reversal of a provision related to a US government drug pricing program. When you strip out the accounting magic, adjusted sales fell 4% and profits fell 6% due to lower realized prices in the US.
But investors ignored the "adjusted" dip and focused on the future: the pill. The Wegovy weight-loss tablet, launched in the US in January, generated 2.26 billion kroner ($355 million) in its first three months. That is nearly double what analysts expected. Prescriptions for the pill hit 1.3 million in the quarter and surged past 2 million by mid-April.
CEO Mike Doustdar noted that the US is currently in the grip of a "peptide craze," where consumers are finally learning the science behind GLP-1 hormones. This cultural shift helped Novo regain a 65% share of all new prescriptions in the US. Shares in Copenhagen jumped 7% on the news, marking the stock's best day of 2026.
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The pharmaceutical world is currently a two-horse race between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly for the weight-loss market, expected to reach $100 billion by 2030. For the past year, Lilly has been winning, with its drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound showing slightly higher weight-loss percentages in clinical trials.
This quarter’s results suggest Novo has found its "secret weapon" to fight back. The oral Wegovy pill is widening the market rather than just cannibalizing the injectable business. In a direct-to-consumer market like the US, a pill is a much easier sell than a needle, and Novo currently has a head start in this category. While Lilly recently launched its own obesity pill, Foundayo, Novo’s early lead in prescriptions suggests it is building brand loyalty that will be hard to break.
There is also the "Trump factor" to consider. Novo is preparing to launch the Wegovy pill outside the US later this year, even as industry experts worry about potential "most favored nation" drug pricing policies that could tie US prices to lower European levels. Doustdar dismissed these fears, arguing that because Novo launched the pill at a lower starting price of $149 per month, they are less vulnerable to political pricing pressure than rivals with wider U.S.-Europe price gaps.
The broader obesity care category saw adjusted sales rise 22% in the quarter. This proves that even as prices for these drugs fall due to government negotiation and fierce competition, the sheer volume of new patients is more than making up the difference. Novo is essentially betting that the "peptide craze" isn't a fad, but a fundamental shift in how the world treats chronic metabolic disease.
Pending regulatory approvals, Novo plans to launch the Wegovy pill in international markets during the second half of 2026. This move will be crucial to see if the "peptide craziness" seen in the US can be replicated in Europe and Asia, where direct-to-consumer advertising is restricted.
All eyes are also on the pipeline. After a series of setbacks for its next-generation drug CagriSema, Novo needs a win to prove it can stay ahead of Lilly’s R&D machine. Watch for results from the AMAZE phase 3 program for zenagamtide, which Novo hopes will set a new benchmark for weight loss. For now, the "turnaround situation" Doustdar described seems real, but in a market this lucrative, nobody stays on top for long without another breakthrough in the chamber.
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