On Monday, Novo Nordisk announced that the results from its Phase 3 trial investigating semaglutide as a treatment for Alzheimer’s “did not confirm the superiority of semaglutide versus placebo in the reduction of progression,” of the disease, according to the press release. Monday’s announcement had a silver lining. That is, the treatment did result in…
Novo slashes US GLP-1 prices by up to 70%, but 2026 semaglutide revenue could hold steady or even grow
Novo Nordisk, which helped kickstart the GLP-1 craze by expanding a diabetes drug to obesity, is slimming down the prices of Ozempic and Wegovy. That won’t necessarily translate into steep revenue drops in 2026 though. Current projections still point to rising semaglutide sales next year, and a drop in price could lead to a boost…
Trump administration makes deal with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk to lower GLP-1 prices
On Thursday, the Trump administration announced agreements with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to reduce the prices of the companies’ GLP-1 drugs for Americans. Under the agreements, Ozempic and Wegovy will be sold at $350 per month and Zepbound for an average of $346 per month, depending on dose, when purchased through TrumpRx, a platform…
Lilly is set to lead pharma in 2026, but can it justify an $800B valuation?
Eli Lilly is on track to overtake pharma rivals and claim the industry’s top spot by late 2026, completing one of the most dramatic repositionings in Big Pharma’s recent history. Aggressive and base scenarios place Lilly’s rise to the number one slot in 2026, while a conservative prediction forecasts that the firm will do so…
Novo Nordisk board chair and members quit after disagreement on board membership
Once so valuable its market capitalization eclipsed that of its home country of Denmark, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk is now showing signs of strain. Most recently, several members of Novo Nordisk’s board of directors quit after failing to reach an agreement with the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the firm’s controlling shareholder (via Novo Holdings), on the…
Top 25 drugs by sales: 2025 H1
The pharmaceutical blockbuster model is wobbling. And no single franchise is safe. While king Keytruda, Merck’s stalwart oncology drug, continues to rule the first half of 2025 with $15.2B in sales (Q1 $7.2B, Q2 $8.0B), its U.S. patent expiry in 2028 the single biggest loss of exclusivity event on the horizon. In the U.S., Medicare…
How Lilly is narrowing the GLP-1 revenue divide with Novo Nordisk — in charts
Ozempic is still the GLP-1 king, but Lilly is rapidly gaining market share, with its Q2 2024 sales reaching $3.01 billion compared to Novo Nordisk’s $5.38 billion. In terms of Q2 quarterly sales, Lilly’s chronic weight management therapy Zepbound in particular is growing quickly with 140% growth between Q1 and Q2. Mounjaro, which, like Zepbound…
Teva readies first generic version of GLP-1 drug Victoza in U.S.
Generic giant Teva Pharmaceuticals will launch the first generic version of Victoza (liraglutide injection 1.8mg) in the U.S, making it the first generic GLP-1 drug to enter the U.S. market. The patent for Novo Nordisk–developed liraglutide is set to expire until November 18, 2024. Other popular GLP-1 drugs, such as semaglutide (marketed as Ozempic and…
The weight-loss drug market: overhyped or justified?
The obesity drug market has seen a surge of interest recently, largely thanks to the popularity of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro. The explosion in interest in the drug class has fueled the stock prices of Novo and Lilly, which both have multiple GLP-1 drugs in their portfolios. …