Novo Nordisk Rises 3% as It Aims to Beat Lilly With Something for Everyone in Obesity

Novo Nordisk stock rose over 3% as it is working on a strategy to make obesity treatment more personalized and wants to offer options for every kind of patient.

The Danish company envisions a trajectory of treatment that could change for different patient groups, said Ludovic Helfgott, Novo’s new chief of product and portfolio strategy. The approach is still being developed and will harness new versions of Novo’s blockbuster weight-loss medicine Wegovy, he said, including a pill that the drugmaker hopes to start selling in the US early next year.

“It’s far more tailored than maybe what it used to be,” Helfgott said in an interview at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes conference in Vienna on Wednesday. Some patients will move from the pill to the Wegovy shot if the pill isn’t strong enough, he said, while some stay on the pill permanently. Others may start with the shot and then move to the oral version. “It’s going to be different by patient group.”

The personalization approach is part of Novo’s fight to wrest market share in obesity away from Eli Lilly & Co., the US maker of rival medicines Zepbound and Mounjaro. After pioneering the market with Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo lost ground as it became clear patients could achieve more weight loss with the Lilly drugs.

Novo’s portfolio includes a high-dose version of Wegovy that can help patients achieve weight loss closer to what’s possible with Zepbound. The drugmaker intends to seek US approval for the high-dose shot, Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange said on Tuesday. The second pillar, the pill, is a challenge to Lilly’s weight-loss tablet orforglipron, which delivered solid data at the medical conference.

Lilly has said it anticipates filing for US approval for its tablet later this year, with a market introduction possible next year. It’s simpler to produce than Novo’s Wegovy-in-a-pill, which means the US drugmaker could potentially set a competitive price.