Sales of the pharma giant's weight loss drug skyrocketed 79% year-over-year
Sales of Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy continue to soar, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The Danish pharma giant posted its third-quarter earnings report early Wednesday morning and boasted sales figures blowing past analysts’ projections.
“We are pleased with the performance in the first nine months of 2024. The sales growth is driven by increasing demand for our GLP-1-based diabetes and obesity treatments, and we are serving more patients than ever before,” Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen said in a statement.
Sales of the company’s weight loss drug Wegovy skyrocketed 79% to 17.3 billion Danish Krone ($2.5 billion) in the third-quarter of 2024, compared with in 9.6 billion Danish Krone ($1.37 billion) during the the same period last year. The drug beat analysts’ expectations of $2.3 billion, according to a consensus estimate from FactSet (FDS)
Wegovy belongs to a class of drugs known as GLP-1 medications — made popular by Novo Nordisk’s diabetes treatment Ozempic. These drugs mimic a hormone that regulates appetite and blood sugar and have become highly sought after as treatments for obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Demand for these medications has turned Novo Nordisk and its rival Eli Lilly $LLY (LLY), the maker of competing medications Zepbound and Mounjaro, into the largest pharma companies in the world.
However, due to their high retail price and skyrocketing demand, many patients have been having difficulty to get their hands on these treatments.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are both now working to increase their production of these meds and curb the sale of cheaper off-brand versions of their popular GLP-1 treatments.
Eli Lilly reported its third-quarter earnings last week, but its blockbuster weight-loss drug failed to meet expectations. Sales of Zepbound, which launched last November, reached $1.2 billion in sales in the third-quarter of 2024, below analysts’ expectations of $1.7 billion, according to FactSet.
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
