Novo Nordisk’s new weight loss pill is proving more popular than expected, boosting the company’s shares as it looks to rebound from a prolonged slump.
The Danish pharmaceutical giant was briefly Europe’s most valuable firm thanks to Ozempic, but has since struggled to keep up with American rival Eli Lilly. Novo said Wednesday that its Wegovy medication saw some 1.3 million prescriptions in the first quarter of 2026.
Its CEO said Novo has benefited from the “peptide craziness” in the US, referring to the wellness boom around injectable peptide therapies — short chains of amino acids increasingly marketed as health hacks. Competition is set to intensify in the second quarter: Lilly last month rolled out its weight-loss pill Foundayo, which isn’t a peptide.
