The key takeaway is that Novo Nordisk laid out ambitious goals on Monday, planning to launch at least five potential blockbuster drugs by 2030, yet its share price plunged 8% after the announcement.
Analysts said the strategy update offered little new information and was unlikely to restore market confidence after two years of steep share price declines.
In an interview, CEO Mike Doustdar acknowledged that the falling share price showed "we still have more work to do to rebuild market trust."
On March 26, 2026, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Novo Nordisk CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar attended the company's annual general meeting.
The Danish drugmaker became a global phenomenon thanks to its diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
But this week the company failed to ease investors' concerns: by the early 2030s, semaglutide, the active ingredient in both drugs, will lose patent exclusivity in core markets, and Novo Nordisk has yet to offer a convincing plan for how it will continue to compete.
At Monday's capital markets day, Novo-Nordisk A/S (NVO) unveiled plans to launch more than five potential blockbuster drugs before 2030; after the news emerged, the share price fell 8%, extending a two-year decline.
Barclays analysts commented that "the new information disclosed was limited and insufficient to boost market confidence," while Jefferies said the company neither "reduced uncertainty along its development path nor offered a strategic reset."
Meanwhile, major rival Eli Lilly has seen its share price rise 58% over the past 12 months.
Novo Nordisk's shares have clearly fallen behind those of its top rival Eli Lilly.
Sydbank analyst Soren Hansen, who attended the capital markets day, told reporters that the entire presentation centered on a "trust issue."
Asked about market confidence, Novo Nordisk CEO Doustdar said: "The market's reaction proves that we still need to do more to build market trust in us."
Accompanied by two other executives responsible for implementing the new strategy, he said in an interview: "Trust is built gradually and takes time to establish."
Novo Nordisk has already invested billions of euros in expanding factories to increase weight-loss drug capacity, while racing to fill its R&D pipeline and stockpile next-generation drugs.
But Doustdar candidly told reporters that the company must now "quarter after quarter" win back market credibility with financial data and scientific results.
"Our task is to stay firmly committed to the strategic direction and keep delivering results that exceed even our own expectations," he said.
Moving toward diversification again. This new strategy of stepping beyond the core pipeline and pushing business diversification contrasts with the approach he took when he first became CEO in August last year: at that time, Doustdar emphasized streamlining the business and focusing heavily on diabetes and obesity.
Doustdar disagrees with the view that the company has made a "180-degree turn" in strategy.
"It looks very different on the surface, but in reality it is not that disconnected," he explained. When he took office, he found that apart from diabetes and obesity, the number of early-stage clinical projects had quadrupled over the previous three to four years, while the core therapeutic pipeline had almost stalled.
Therefore, at the time, both internally and externally, it was necessary to emphasize a focus on diabetes and obesity, and "that strategy did indeed deliver results."
Speaking about the early-stage pipeline disclosed on Monday, Doustdar said the company has now reached a stage where it can broaden its business footprint again, expanding into cardiovascular, liver, and blood disease areas.
"Now is the time to broaden the business boundaries again, rather than sticking only to the existing core tracks," the CEO said.
But not everyone approves of the pace of Novo Nordisk's diversification.
A Jefferies research note pointed out that although the company is striving to diversify, its product portfolio remains highly dependent on the obesity drug segment in the face of the looming risk of semaglutide patent expiration.
Earlier on Tuesday, in an interview on the program "Europe Pre-Market," Doustdar discussed using M&A to fill gaps in areas outside its traditional strengths.
He did not rule out acquiring obesity- and diabetes-related assets, but said deals outside the core therapeutic areas would be a more natural choice.
Betting on the breadth of the product matrix. There may not necessarily be a single "successor" that can fully replace Wegovy in the future.
Investors pay close attention to headline data such as percentage weight loss, but Novo Nordisk believes the obesity drug market will become segmented: when choosing medications, doctors and patients will consider not only weight-loss efficacy but also side effects, muscle preservation, other health benefits, and ease of use, such as injectable forms versus oral pills.
Novo Nordisk Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange told reporters that in the end, the winner will be the drugmaker with a rich product matrix.
"A single drug cannot achieve that," Lange said.
On the one hand, Novo Nordisk is developing drugs with fewer side effects and moderate weight-loss results, while also developing candidates with greater weight-loss magnitude; it is also exploring new drugs that can protect muscle and treat obesity-related complications.
The company's pipeline includes CagriSema, planned for launch in 2027, followed by the single-agent cagrilintide.
It is also advancing multiple next-generation oral drugs, including the oral amylin drug zenagamtide and a combination of an ACSL5 inhibitor with semaglutide.
Hong Chow, executive vice president of product and pipeline business, said Novo Nordisk surveyed 37,000 obesity patients; about one-third of respondents wanted to lose as much weight as possible, while the rest prioritized factors such as speed of weight loss and quality of life.
Lange said that although some late-stage clinical trial results for CagriSema in 2024 fell short of the market's high expectations for weight-loss magnitude, the drug remains competitive.
He said that with a personalized dosing regimen balancing efficacy, side effects, and pace of weight loss, real-world clinical weight loss could exceed the trial's highest weight-loss figure of 23%.
He also cited trial results showing strong performance at low doses: obese participants achieved average weight loss of up to 21%.
CagriSema's value is not limited to weight loss; it can also improve blood sugar and treat multiple obesity-related complications.
Lange also acknowledged: "What investors want to see is solid trial data."
The key weight of oral pills. "If there is anything the market has underestimated, it is our established leadership in oral formulations," Chow said.
Company data disclosed showed that more than 80% of newly started U.S. patients using Novo's oral weight-loss drug had never previously used a GLP-1 injectable, indicating that compared with injections, the convenience of oral pills is key to rapid market penetration.
Novo Nordisk plans to expand capacity so that by 2030 the number of obesity patients who can be served by oral weight-loss drugs will increase tenfold from current levels, while also bringing four other oral obesity drugs to market over the same period.
Wegovy, semaglutide oral tablets. Novo Nordisk told investors that multiple obesity treatments, a strong oral product matrix, and new business areas beyond diabetes and obesity will together build its competitive advantage.
A Citi research note on Tuesday pointed out that the launch of Wegovy oral tablets outside the U.S. market will be an important litmus test for this new strategy; institutions remain cautious about long-term obesity drug pricing and the industry's competitive landscape.
Citi forecasts that the company's annual growth rate will remain only in the mid-single digits before 2030, and the content unveiled at this capital markets day has done little to change that expectation; it maintained a neutral rating on the stock.
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