Novo Nordisk to present early drug trial data, Wegovy supply update
(Corrects to show drug is for obesity (not Type 2 diabetes), in paragraphs 1 and 7)
By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Maggie Fick
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) — Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) on Thursday said it would present early trial data for a highly anticipated pipeline obesity drug, and give an update on the supply of weight loss drug Wegovy amid shortages.
In an era of unprecedented levels of obesity worldwide, Wegovy has transformed Danish drugmaker Novo, long known as a maker of insulin.
Novo is racing to increase output of the blockbuster drug Wegovy amid shortages, and in February scored a win when its parent company bought Catalent (NYSE:CTLT), a key manufacturing subcontractor of the product.
Novo said in a statement that it will «update on scaling of manufacturing capacity and plans to increase patient reach» as it hosts investors and analysts at its headquarters near Copenhagen for the first strategy update since Wegovy exploded in popularity.
Its market capitalisation stood at about $560 billion going into the meeting compared with around $235 billion two years ago when it last held an investor day.
Novo shares are up around 15% since the company reported full-year earnings on Jan. 31, and have risen more than three-fold since June 2021 when it launched Wegovy in the United States.
Nearly half of Novo's current valuation is based on the company's pipeline of new experimental drugs such as amycretin, the obesity drug it will give an update for on Thursday, according to calculations by Berenberg analysts last week.
Analysts had hoped Novo would provide data at Thursday's investor meeting after announcing on Jan. 31 that the group had successfully completed an early stage trial of that experimental drug.
At that time,
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