That’s right New Nordisk showed signs of recovery, another cold spell weighed on investors as the drugmaker released its forecast for 2026 late Tuesday, sending shares tumbling.
Shares in Novo Nordisk fell 17% in Copenhagen on Wednesday, tracking losses. seen in American depository shares on Tuesday and more than erasing the gains seen this year.
“People should expect it to go down before it goes back up,” CNBC CEO Mike Dustdar told “Early Europe” on Wednesday, noting the impact of a significant drop in U.S. prices for the top-selling drug Wegovy.
“We didn’t go into detail about the scope of it – with the guidance, we give that scope.”
That’s worse than analysts expected, according to Novo’s 2026 guidance for sales and operating profit to fall between 5% and 13%.
Analysts at Barclays said some may suggest the guidance is a “kitchen sink” to beat, but “we see that said last year and it’s not”.
In July last yearNovo cut its guidance for 2025, citing a tough U.S. market, sending shares down 23% on the day.
“U-shaped recovery”
“We’re making GLP-1 products affordable for the millions of patients who need them, but they can’t afford it. You have to take the wind to make it happen in the short term. But of course, there could be a very long wind for many years,” Dustdar told CNBC.
The company has also faced pricing challenges in its biggest market, the US, where Wegovy and Ozempic’s active ingredient, semaglutide, are combined with pharmacies that sell cheaper versions, as well as their main US rivals. Eli Lilly.
But optimism grew earlier this year, as the US launch of the Wegovy pill fared better than even Novo had expected. “We knew it would be the best in terms of effectiveness at 16.6%, which we expected to do well, but we didn’t expect to have 170,000 people on the pill after four weeks of administration,” Dustdar said.
“As good as it was in the early stages, it hit the price business, basically, to produce the great pills that we had.”
While Novo has worked to manage expectations for its full-year results, where it announced guidance for next year, the market didn’t see that coming.
“The question here is, is the recovery going to be a Nike swoosh or a U-shaped recovery?” HSBC’s Rajesh Kumar noted.
A company in crisis?
Last year was a historic year for Novo in several ways.
Shares fell nearly 50% in 2025, marking the company’s worst year on record. The company has appointed its first non-Danish CEO giving the name of the former CEOLars Rebjen Sørensen as chairman of the board has been described as an unprecedented power grab. This position is in addition to his previous duties, which include serving as chairman of Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo’s controlling shareholder.
Novo is also a An important agreement with US President Donald Trump Lowering the prices of blockbuster drugs in Medicare and Medicaid and offering them directly to consumers at a discount on a website the Trump administration is calling TrumpRx.gov.
New An initial dose of Wegovy pills is sold for only $149A fraction of what Novo sold an injectable version of just a year ago. A patent expiration in 2026 in some former US markets will also affect sales.
Meanwhile, Novo’s U.S. chief, David Moore, who oversaw the pill’s launch, is leaving the company for personal reasons, Novo said. He was replaced by Jamie Miller, formerly of US Health Insurance UnitedHealth Group.
Asked on Wednesday if Novo Nordisk was in crisis, Dustdar resoundingly answered “no”.
“While we recognize that 2025 poses significant challenges to our performance and share price, these challenges have made us more resilient,” he told reporters.