Novo Nordisk’s U.S.-listed shares rose after-hours on Wednesday after the Danish drugmaker said its new Wegovy pill helped people lose about as much weight as the weekly shot.
Novo’s shares jumped 3.5% to $60.26 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, after closing up 1.8% at $58.20 during the regular session, marking their fourth straight day of gains.
The daily pill has already been sent to U.S. regulators for approval as a long-term weight-loss treatment, with a decision expected by the end of the year. If cleared, it would be the first obesity pill of its kind, and Novo said production is already underway at its U.S. plants.
In a year-long study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, participants who took the pill lost an average of nearly 17% of their body weight. By contrast, those given a placebo lost less than 3%. More than one in three participants managed to lose a fifth of their body weight or more.
Even when accounting for people who didn’t stick strictly to the treatment plan, those on the Wegovy pill still lost an average of 13.6% of their weight versus 2.2% for the placebo, with nearly a third hitting the 20% weight-loss mark.
Novo said the pill also improved cardiovascular risk factors and patients’ ability to carry out daily activities such as walking, bending, and standing. Safety was consistent with injectable Wegovy, with gastrointestinal side effects most common.
At the same time, competition is intensifying. Eli Lilly announced on Wednesday that its experimental oral weight-loss drug, Orforglipron, was found to be superior to Novo’s oral semaglutide in a head-to-head late-stage trial involving 1,698 adults with type 2 diabetes.
The trial compared 12 mg and 36 mg doses of Orforglipron with 7 mg and 14 mg doses of oral semaglutide. At 52 weeks, Orforglipron lowered blood sugar by as much as 2.2% compared to 1.4% with the highest semaglutide dose, while producing greater weight reduction.
Nearly three times as many participants on the highest Orforglipron dose reached near-normal blood sugar levels versus those on the highest semaglutide dose, Lilly said.
Kenneth Custer, president of Lilly Cardiometabolic Health, said the results underscored Orforglipron’s strength. “At the highest dose, Orforglipron helped nearly three times as many participants reach near-normal blood sugar versus the highest dose of oral semaglutide,” he said, adding that head-to-head trials represent the “gold standard” for comparing treatments.
Novo is also pursuing a strategy of more personalized care, allowing patients to switch between pill and injection depending on response, said Ludovic Helfgott, its head of product and portfolio strategy, according to a Bloomberg report.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for Novo Nordisk was ‘bullish’ with ‘high’ message volume, while sentiment for Eli Lilly was ‘bearish’ with ‘normal’ message volume.
While Novo Nordisk’s U.S.-listed stock has declined 31% so far in 2025, Eli Lilly’s stock has lost 1% over the same period.
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