How drugmaker lost ground to Eli Lilly and copycats

Launched in late 2017, Özempic caused significant weight loss and at least caused cultural tapes due to its use among celebrities. Tiktok, who documented people’s experience with Özempic, attracted millions of views. Analysts predicted that 1 billion people in the world were accepted as obese, that they could enter an enormous market. In the first half of the year, Novo Nordisk made 10 billion dollars from Özempic, 70 percent in the US.

For a company focusing on insulin -selling business, Özempic’s popularity surprised its executives. In 2021, Wegovy began to sell Semagluid, especially marketed for weight loss, but the demand was so high that the company fought to meet it.

HSBC analyst Rajesh Kumar, this famine, “a box of worms opened,” he said.

A FDA decision opens the door for imitators

In 2022, Semagluid landed on the famine list of Food and Drug Administration, which promotes the production of cheaper imitator versions of Novo Nordisk’s drugs. In order to provide the supply of drugs that face famine, the US Federal Law allows companies to produce patented drug versions through the process of mixing compositions.

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FDA said that the famine ended this year and that imitating weight loss drugs ordered the wind of manufacturers and sellers. But Novo Nordisk said it never happened. The compounds continued to present what they call the “personalized” versions of drugs, which is a legally blurred practice that they claim to be allowed by the law.

Novo Nordisk said last week that more than 1 million people still use compound GLP-1s, the company entered the market share and forced to reduce sales and profit forecasts. Stocks immediately fell more than 20 percent and deleted more than $ 70 billion ($ 107 billion) in a day, and some analysts have reduced their suggestions about the company.

One of them was Kumar, who advised investors to buy Novo Nordisk’s shares for at least two years before led to “holding” last week.

The compound was part of the cause. “Novo is releasing a lot of stop and desist order, but it was very difficult to stop them,” he said.

On Wednesday, Novo Nordisk filed 14 new cases against compounds the day before. Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, CEO of departure, is important for us to come together from the market because it is now equal to our business, ”he said.

Kumar said that they target Wegovy, especially because the compounds are the most well -known brand. This hand helped Lilly get an advantage.

Lilly catches his hand and then a little

Novo Nordisk made a big start. Ozempic was 4½ years after a serious opponent’s emergence: Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, a brand used for diabetes treatment, is the brand of Tirmiden.

Mounjaro has proven that it was more effective and caused more weight loss in clinical studies. Many patients said they prefer it. According to an analytical company IQVIA, Zepbound, marketed for Eli Lilly’s weight loss at the beginning of this year, marketed for weight loss, Zepbound passed Wegovy in new prescriptions in the United States.

Unlike Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly has found ways to get the product cheaper to consumers cheaper and to compete with Telearth companies that offer compound imitation versions by selling bottles with syringes with syringes instead of pre -filled doses.

Novo Nordisk was also blocked by the slowness of bringing a sales platform directly to the consumer. Novocare Pharmacy was launched in March 14 months after Lillydirect.

“Lilly was doing all this, and it wasn’t Novo,” said Barclays Analyst Emily Field, recently dropped the stock.

“Many of this sounded like a big target,” he said.

Novo’s fighting to impress the pipeline

Above all, the market value of a company is determined by investors’ future earning expectations. For a drug company, this means drugs on the pipeline. This helps Eli Lilly’s shares better than Novo Nordisk this year.

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Investors and analysts are particularly interested in the expectations of weight loss pills that can reach more patients than injections. Eli Lilly’s daily pills, Obsforglpron, shows promising results in late -stage clinical studies with less restriction in weight loss and use similar to Novo Nordisk’s injections. Novo Nordisk causes less weight loss than oral tablet injections, but has other pills in the development of the company.

On Thursday, Eli Lilly said that an analysts who have reduced the shares of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk caused a slightly less 12 percent loss of loss than expected. However, Eli Lilly increased the overall gain forecast for the year on more demand for Zepbound.

While developing the pipeline, Eli Lilly, Guggenheim Partners Analyst Seamus Fernandez said, “He distributes capital in a market that is not patient in any way and works faster than Novo,” he said.

Can a new leader make a difference?

The Novo Nordisk Foundation, which controls Novo Nordisk through the holding company, was impatient. Jorgensen, the CEO of the company since Ozempic’s release in the call of the Foundation, resigned.

Maziar Mike Dustdar took the first role of the first attempt to manage the company. Dousdar, an Austrian citizen who was born in the United States in the United States, joined the company because he thought he would have a photocopy summer job in 1992.

Helge Lund, Chairman of the Board of Directors, announced Dustdar’s appointment, “There is a prejudice for speed, tempo and action.”

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There are concerns that analysts may have more predicted the potential size of the weight loss market, or at least more people will access these drugs. At the same time, US President Donald Trump forces companies to reduce pharmaceutical prices and threaten tariffs on drugs produced abroad and to create a cloud on the business models of pharmaceutical companies.

“I believe it is still a big market, Pow said Powell of Powell from Pola Capital, who invests in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. However, the broader concerns about the market, Novo Nordisk’in the hardest hit, he added.

Powell probably said that a new CEO could do to change the appearance significantly in the next one or two years.

“The truth is,” he said. “Lilly’s product is better seen.”

This article emerged at the beginning New York Times.

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