Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jorgensen testifies earlier than a Senate Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions Committee listening to on U.S. costs for the burden loss medicine Ozempic and Wegovy, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 24, 2024.
Piroschka Van De Wouw | Reuters
Novo Nordisk stated Friday that CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is stepping down because the Wegovy maker seeks to revive its ailing fortunes amid growing competitors.
The Danish pharmaceutical big stated Jørgensen, who was on the helm for eight years, would stay in his submit “for a interval to help a clean transition to new management.” It added that the seek for a successor was ongoing and an announcement could be made sooner or later.
Novo Nordisk shares have been final buying and selling 2.3% decrease. In the meantime, shares of rival weight problems drug maker Eli Lilly have been beforehand up 1.6% in premarket buying and selling.
The choice comes as Novo Nordisk’s inventory value has taken a battering over the previous 12 months amid elevated competitors within the ballooning weight problems drug market and disappointing trial outcomes for its next-generation remedies.
The corporate’s share value is at the moment down by greater than 50% for the reason that center of 2024.
Board chairman Helge Lund stated discussions to exchange Jørgensen had been ongoing for the previous a number of weeks between Novo Nordisk and the Novo Nordisk Basis, which controls the agency, in accordance with Reuters.
Reuters individually reported Jørgensen as telling Danish broadcaster TV2 that he was solely knowledgeable very lately and that he didn’t see the choice coming.
“Novo Nordisk’s technique stays unchanged, and the Board is assured within the firm’s present enterprise plans and its potential to execute on the plans,” Lund stated in a press release asserting the choice.
“The modifications are, nonetheless, made in gentle of the latest market challenges Novo Nordisk has been dealing with, and the event of the corporate’s share value since mid-2024,” the corporate stated in a press release.
In reference to the change, the corporate stated that Lars Rebien Sørensen, former Novo CEO and present chair of the Novo Nordisk Basis, will be part of Novo Nordisk’s board, initially as an observer.
Novo final week reported lower-than-expected first-quarter gross sales of its flagship Wegovy weight problems drug and trimmed its full-year gross sales development forecast amid elevated competitors from compounded drug markets within the U.S.
“Compounders took part of our enterprise away,” Jørgensen informed CNBC’s Charlotte Reed.
The corporate however stated that it anticipated gross sales to enhance within the second half of the 12 months as the provision of copycat compounded medicine is phased out after the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) ended its drug scarcity ruling.
Novo has in the meantime struggled to shake detrimental sentiment following a sequence of disappointing trial outcomes for its next-generation weight problems drug candidate CagriSema. Jørgensen beforehand stated that he was “very optimistic” in regards to the prospects for the therapy.
“From the information now we have, CagriSema is the perfect product that has been examined out or is in the marketplace, and we imagine we will get these knowledge even higher.”