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Shares in Novo Nordisk rose 13 per cent on Friday on hopes that positive trial results for a new weight loss drug give it the potential to create another blockbuster.
Novo became Europe’s largest company by market capitalisation in intraday trading on Friday, retaking a crown it had ceded to luxury goods group LVMH only last week.
Shares in Novo rose 13 per cent to DKr659.20 ($92.48) on Friday, while LVMH was up 1.6 per cent at €732.30 in the early afternoon in Paris.
The Novo trial found that people taking amycretin lost up to 22 per cent of their body weight after 36 weeks, similar to the weight loss from Zepbound, which is made by Novo Nordisk’s biggest competitor Eli Lilly.
Analysts at Bank of America said the results showed amycretin could be “best in class”, delivering as much as 25 per cent weight loss.
But the drug still needs to go through a large late stage trial, so would not be on the market until at least 2028, they said.
Martin Lange, executive vice-president for development at Novo, said the group was “very encouraged” by the results.
The company is now planning further development of the drug, which targets two key hormones — GLP-1, which is targeted by existing weight loss drugs — and amylin, which makes people feel full when they eat.
Novo Nordisk had already completed an early stage trial of a pill that uses this mechanism, which resulted in average weight loss of about 13 per cent of body weight after 12 weeks. The latest trial, which involved 125 people classed as overweight or obese, tested an injected version.
Novo’s shares have risen in recent years as investors bet on high demand for its weight loss and diabetes treatments, Wegovy and Ozempic respectively. They reached a peak of DKr1,028 last summer, but have fallen sharply since then.
Last month the price dropped dramatically after disappointing results from late stage trials of CagriSema, another weight loss treatment, while this month the shares were hit by fears that its drugs could face price cuts in the US.
The Bank of America analysts said the amycretin data could help “rebut concerns” after the disappointing result for CagriSema.
Novo competes with Eli Lilly in the obesity drugs market. Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro and weight loss treatment Zepbound offer higher average weight loss than Wegovy.
The amycretin trial found the treatment had similar mild to moderate gastrointestinal side effects to current weight loss drugs.
It tested different doses of amycretin, with participants on the lowest dose losing an average of 9.7 per cent of their body weight, and those on the highest losing an average of 22 per cent. People given placebo treatments in the trial gained about 2 per cent of their body weight.
