Novo Cuts Wegovy Prices Again as Shares Lose 45%
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Novo Nordisk chairman Lars Rebien Sorensen faces investors at Thursday's annual meeting — his first since the May 2025 boardroom coup that ousted former CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen
- Novo Nordisk shares have fallen roughly 45% since Sorensen's intervention last May, while rival Eli Lilly's market value grew by a fifth, briefly making it the world's first $1 trillion drugmaker
- Wegovy prices in South Africa were cut for a second time since the August launch, with the lowest dose dropping 60% to $110 and the highest dose falling 27% to $221; a further 12% cut to the 1.7mg dose awaits approval
- Novo Nordisk market access head Thabeng Leping said the company originally priced Wegovy based on uncertain reference pricing during U.S. "most-favored nation" policy talks, and decided to "fix it as we go along"
- Investors cite two specific missteps: a failed bid last fall to acquire an obesity startup from Pfizer and a gloomy forecast earlier this year that sent shares plunging
Why it matters: Novo Nordisk is simultaneously losing altitude in the equity market — shares down 45% — and cutting Wegovy prices in smaller geographies to fend off Eli Lilly, the rival that briefly became the world's first $1 trillion drugmaker. The 60% cut to South Africa's lowest dose signals how much pricing power has shifted away from the original obesity-drug incumbent.
