Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk remains open to making bolt-on acquisitions, but the Danish drugmaker's Chief Executive Mike Doustdar has ruled out any large transformative deals.
Speaking in an interview, Doustdar said a lot of market focus has been aimed at M&A in the pharma space this week, due to recent news in the industry. A Financial Times report said that AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb held talks in recent months over a potential tie-up, citing unnamed sources.
"I don't know the needs of the two competitors that are right now trying to talk to each other, but we don't see a need for a transformative M&A right now," Doustdar said.
"What we do see is a need to continue looking at all possibilities and assets and technologies that exist within the areas we are operating in to bolt on and add on to the good stuff we're doing on our own, because while we are very proud of our own pipeline, we also should be humble enough to say we don't have a monopoly of good ideas."
Doustdar made the comments after Novo Nordisk made two disclosures in recent days on its future pipeline that disappointed investors. Trial results from an experimental cardiovascular drug didn't show the expected risk reduction for adverse cardiovascular events, while its next-generation obesity and diabetes drug CagriSema disappointed in terms of its blood sugar-lowering effect compared to Eli Lilly's tirzepatide, according to analysts.
Despite that, sales of its Wegovy weight-loss pill continue to show strong growth, with second-quarter sales surging 43% on quarter to 3.22 billion Danish kroner ($496.8 million). That came in just shy of the 3.33 billion kroner expected in a FactSet analyst poll.
After launching earlier this year, the pill is attracting patients that are new to weight-loss medications, with only a small portion of those taking the new tablet switching from the company's injectable treatment.
While it is still early days, Doustdar said that since launching in the U.S. in January, around 80% of patients are taking a GLP-1 for the first time.
"A lot of people who are coming onto the pill are individuals that basically are increasingly interested about treating themselves with GLP-1s, but do not want an injection," he said.
The Wegovy pill became available in the United Arab Emirates in June and Doustdar said the pill has 50% of the market there. Eli Lilly launched its rival weight-loss pill in the UAE in May.
In the U.K., where the Wegovy pill became available last month, Novo Nordisk said around 300,000 patients have already begun taking the pill, exceeding company expectations by far.
Recently gained regulatory approval in the European Union has now opened the door to selling the drug across the bloc's 27 member states, and Doustdar said the next market to launch the pill will be Germany in September.
While the company has moved to gain early sales momentum through offering discounted prices on its pill, some of those early deals in the U.S. are nearing an end and analysts have questioned whether these offers could be extended to maintain the uptake trajectory.
Doustdar said Wednesday that the way patients and doctors view obesity is very different to diabetes--the company's traditional treatment area--in that it is much more of a consumer-driven market.
The traditional pharmaceutical market sets its price of a drug upon launch and year by year that price moves lower until it reaches a plateau when generic versions are introduced. But in a consumer market, pricing dynamics are very different.
"I think we need to think a little bit more holistically," he said. "We need to be much more agile around our pricing as a whole."
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