Novo shares fall 7% as company lays out growth ambitions in obesity drug market

Novo shares fell as much as 7% on Monday after the company laid out new growth ambitions to revive its fortunes in the booming obesity drug market.

The Danish company seeks to convince investors it can compete in an increasingly crowded field it helped pioneer.

The company said it aims to launch more than five drugs with "multi-blockbuster" potential by 2030 and generate more than 150 billion Danish kroner ($23 billion) in pipeline sales by 2035, including current assets.

It also expects revenue growth between 2026 and 2030 to be in line with industry peers.

Copenhagen-listed shares fell as much as 7%, to later pare some losses to trade 4.8% lower at 11:10 am local time.

"Investors hoped for a project 'miracle' that could turn the momentum around short term," Per Hansen, savings economist at Nordnet, told CNBC. "For obvious reasons that miracle does not exist."

CEO Mike Doustdar told investors at the company's Capital Markets Day in London that the "elephant in the room" was that semaglutide, the active ingredient in weight-loss and diabetes medicines Wegovy and Ozempic, will lose key patent exclusivity starting in the early next decade. It expires in 2032 in the U.S., which accounts for more than half of its sales.

This loss of exclusivity "is what's on most people's mind, and rightfully so," Doustdar said.

"We created an incredibly attractive market, and now almost every other single pharma company, big or small, is trying to come and compete with us. We need to be ready for that," he added

Doustdar also laid out plans to diversify the company, adding that the company did not "belittle" the loss of exclusivity "or the challenges that comes with it, related to the price pressure."

"We plan to come on the other side of the LOE as a bigger company than we are today and a much more diversified version of it," he added.

Ahead of the opening bell on Monday, Novo shares had fallen 27% over the past 12 months, while its chief rival Eli Lilly shares have gained 52% over the same period.

Lilly has managed to grab a majority market share in the injectable GLP-1 space with Mounjaro and Zepbound, despite launching years after Novo's drugs

While Novo's launched its Wegovy pill in the U.S. at the beginning of this year to great success, investors are still cautious around the drugmaker's prospects of regaining ground. It has begun to roll out the Wegovy pill in other markets as well, but it still represents a small portion of its total sales.

A series of clinical setbacks and leadership upheavals over the past year has added to investors' concerns.

Last week, Novo said it is rebranding from Novo Nodrisk to Novo and updating its corporate culture. Doustdar told CNBC the rebrand and culture revamp were "parts of the same package" to meet fierce competition from Lilly.