Demand Surging for Wegovy Weight Loss Obesity Drug, Novo Nordisk Says

(Bloomberg) -- Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk A/S doubled its 2025 sales target for obesity treatments to 25 billion kroner ($3.7 billion) as it boosts production of Wegovy, its newest weight-loss medication, to keep up with demand.

“It's clear that there is a large unmet medical need within obesity,” Camilla Sylvest, executive vice president of commercial strategy and corporate affairs, said in a presentation to investors Thursday.

Novo has been battling Wegovy production issues as demand soared and after a contract manufacturer stopped filling syringes with Wegovy due to quality concerns in December. Still, Novo expects to meet Wegovy demand in the U.S. in the second half of the year and extra capacity is expected to be added by 2023, it said.

“While consensus already captures the new guidance, we still believe it worked as a relief,” Mattias Haggblom, an analyst at Handelsbanken, said in a note, highlighting Novo's often “conservative way of guiding” and the supply problems with Wegovy.

Since Wegovy launched in June, the number of doctors prescribing the weekly injectable that dampens appetite and helps patients lose about 15% of their body weight has eclipsed Novo's earlier obesity drug Saxenda.

Separately, interim analysis of Novo's cardiovascular trial, Select, is expected to be conducted in the third quarter of this year, said Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president of development.

The trial, which enrolled 17,500 people with obesity, aims to show that using 2.4 milligrams of semaglutide lowers the rate of major adverse cardiovascular events and can address many co-morbidities associated with poor weight management, including cardiovascular disease, hyperglycemia and kidney disease.

“About 90% of patients suffering from obesity have co-morbidities in some shape or form,” Holst Lange said. “It's a big impairment on everyday life.”

While obesity care sales continue to be mostly out of pocket, reimbursement is improving, Novo said.