Investors in Novo Nordisk are staring at a brutal reality: the shares have shed nearly 46% over the past twelve months, trading at around €36 after touching a 52-week high of just over €70. Yet beneath the wreckage of the price chart, a far more nuanced story is unfolding — one of a blockbuster pill that is expanding the market rather than cannibalising it, a pipeline that is delivering mixed but not hopeless results, and a buyback programme that signals management’s own belief in the company’s trajectory.
The immediate catalyst for the sell-off has been competitive pressure, particularly from Eli Lilly. At the recent ADA conference in New Orleans, Novo Nordisk presented data that left analysts underwhelmed. Its high-profile candidate CagriSema achieved a 23% weight loss after 84 weeks in a head-to-head trial — respectable, but below the 25.5% posted by Lilly’s Zepbound. That miss has coloured investor sentiment, even though the pipeline contains other promising assets. Zenagamtide, an amycretin-based drug, delivered weight loss of up to 14.6% in a Phase 2 study of over 250 patients with type 2 diabetes, and its Phase 3 programme is slated to begin in the second half of 2026. First results are not expected before 2028.
But the real bright spot is the oral version of Wegovy, launched in the US just five months ago. Since then, more than three million prescriptions have been written — roughly one every five seconds. Crucially, over 80% of those patients had never received a GLP-1 therapy before, indicating that the pill is pulling in new users rather than stealing from the injectable. The United Arab Emirates has already become the first international market outside the US, and Medicare coverage kicks in from July 2026, promising a structural demand boost for the second half of next year.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Novo Nordisk?
Management is not sitting idle on the capital front. A buyback programme worth 15 billion Danish kroner is under way, with a sub-programme of up to 11.2 billion kroner running until February 2027. By early June, Novo had repurchased nearly 5 billion kroner worth of stock and increased its treasury stake to 0.8% of total capital. Yet the market has so far shrugged off this signal. The shares remain 12.29% below their 200-day moving average of €41.56, and the relative strength index of 44.9 points to a market that is waiting rather than panicking.
Beyond weight loss, CEO Mike Doustdar used the ADA conference to outline a strategic pivot toward longevity medicine and aesthetic treatments. Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, is showing protective effects on the liver, kidneys and heart — and Novo presented data suggesting it can reduce the biological age of these organs. The company now positions itself as part of the longevity industry, though the commercial viability of that vision hinges on further clinical validation. Zenagamtide’s Phase 3 programme will be a key test, and results are still years away.
For now, the stock is caught between two narratives. One points to a company whose biggest growth driver — the oral pill — is exceeding expectations and opening a vast new patient pool. The other warns that the competitive gap with Lilly is real and that the pipeline’s next big hit remains unproven. The buyback suggests management sees value, but the technical picture demands patience: a sustained break above the 200-day average would be needed to confirm a trend reversal. For those with a two- to three-year horizon, the arguments for owning a world leader in metabolic health at its current price are compelling — provided the market eventually looks past the 12-month drop and focuses on what is already happening on the ground.
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