The fortunes of two pharmaceutical giants are diverging based on their weight-loss drug ventures.
Eli Lilly shares jumped more than 10% on Wednesday after the US firm reported strong sales of its GLP-1s, Zepbound and Mounjaro. Meanwhile, shares in the Danish heavyweight Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, tumbled after it warned of a 2026 sales decline owing to US pricing pressure. Novo turned the GLP-1 market into the global juggernaut it is today, but Lilly has since surpassed it on several fronts; both are now eyeing weight-loss pills as the next frontier.
As prices fall, competition intensifies, and more people embrace the medications, the drugs are behaving “less like traditional prescription medicines and more like consumer products,” Sherwood News wrote.
