Novo Nordisk shares the worst week after the worst week as optimism weakened | Company Business News

(Bloomberg) – It seems things just got better for Novo Nordisk A/S. Investors were optimistic, and the Danish drug manufacturer was briefly the most valuable public company in Europe. Now the share has put its worst week on record. The shares fell 32% this week after the Ozempic and Wegovy manufacturer cut its forecasts for the year and nominated a company’s insider as its new CEO. The share was also hit on Friday after US President Donald Trump demanded that pharmaceutical businesses lower US drug prices. It took Novo’s $ 213 billion market cap – among companies including Nestle SA and Astrazeneca PLC. The Danish firm fell out of Europe’s top 10 on Friday morning before regaining the final slot in the list later that day. “We have long called Novo a ‘show me’ story, ‘Emily Field, analyst of Barclays PLC, wrote in a note this week. But with Novo struggling to compete with cheaper, copy versions of its medicine, and a new drug pipeline left behind the opponents, “we struggle to see what investors will get to return,” Field wrote, and downgraded the stock from overweight to equal weight. Novo’s warning on Tuesday follows a turbulent year that the shares would fall 70% of last summer record high. Issues have disappointing clinical test results for experimental medicine, the increasing competition of Eli Lilly & Co. and the former CEO included. Novo named the company’s veteran Maziar Mike Doustdar as his new leader this week, “but it won’t be an easy solution,” Barclays’ field warned. Novo will report the results of the second term on Wednesday. One area that was a specific headache for Novo is competition of cheaper copy options for American patients. Compound pharmacies are allowed to make and sell cheaper copies of a medicine when branding medicine has a deficit, and although they have lost this consent this year, it remains a problem. Novo blamed his guidance on unrepentant compilers and broader competition. Many investors and analysts were caught off guard by the warning, with the vote in June mainly one of the optimism that started a turnaround. On Monday, almost two-thirds of the Bloomberg analysts assessed the share as a buy or equivalent. But carefully start to seep, with less than half to keep their purchase recommendations from Friday’s market. Read: Novo Nordisk shares are now recovering from peakpessimism “We made our call on Novo wrong,” says Rajesh Kumar, an analyst at HSBC. “Our assumption that Novo with FDA’s ban on composition may not have played again,” he wrote in a note on Thursday and cut the stock to like Buy. However, one investor sees similarities between Novo’s current situation and another revolution for the drug manufacturer in 2016 when it was better known as the world’s largest manufacturer of insulin. Will James, a fund manager at Guinness Global Investors, notes that the company at the time questioned its competitive position. The guidance was cut and the CEO replaced. “The share price dropped and then aggressively recovered when Novo refocused its innovation and commercial efforts,” James said in ‘Ne -mail. “It is undoubtedly a bigger job for the new CEO with a substantial mountain to climb to regain market share and grow and rebuild confidence with investors.” -With help from Michael Msika, Sagarika Jaisinghani and Blaise Robinson. (Update prices.) More stories like these are available on Bloomberg.com © 2025 Bloomberg MP