Novo Nordisk pared its forecast for a fourth time this year on lagging sales of its blockbuster drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, underscoring the urgency facing its new chief executive.

Revenue will rise only as much as 11 percent this year while operating profit expands by 7 percent at most based on constant exchange rates, the Danish drugmaker said Wednesday. The trim comes as the company reported disappointing earnings for the third quarter. The stock slumped in early trading before reversing course.

Novo is struggling to compete with Eli Lilly & Co. in the growing market for obesity medicines. New Chief Executive Officer Mike Doustdar is moving aggressively, laying off 11 percent of the workforce and swooping in with a fresh $10 billion offer to win obesity startup Metsera Inc. away from Pfizer Inc.

Even before Wednesday’s slide of as much as 4.8 percent, Novo shares had lost half their value this year on concerns over its competitiveness. They rose as much as 2 percent after the early decline.

Lilly is gaining ground, with the sales trajectory in large overseas markets starting to mirror that of the US, according to Morgan Stanley. The US drugmaker boosted its guidance and smashed sales expectations at its own third-quarter results last week.

Novo’s results offer “a stark contrast to the performance of Lilly’s rival offering,” Michael Shah and Christos Nikoletopoulos, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note.

While Novo pioneered the market for obesity drugs with Ozempic and Wegovy, its fortunes started to shift last year when an even stronger experimental shot fell short of the weight loss the company had promised in a clinical trial. The Danish drugmaker is now pinning some of its growth hopes on a pill version of Wegovy.

Doustdar said on a conference call he wouldn’t have taken the CEO job if he didn’t feel confident in Novo’s ability to be a leader in obesity. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, he said.

Metsera said both Novo and Pfizer raised their offers on Tuesday. Novo’s new bid values the three-year-old company with no drugs on the market at as much as $10 billion, dislodging Pfizer’s earlier agreement to buy the startup. Metsera’s board deemed Novo’s offer the better deal. Pfizer did come in with its own, improved $8.1 billion bid as it continues to fight Novo in court.

The new profit and sales forecasts compare with earlier estimates of a revenue increase of as much as 14 percent and an earnings gain of up to 10 percent. At the start of the year, the top of the ranges stood at 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively.

Profit last quarter dropped to 23.7 billion kroner ($3.6 billion), falling short of analysts’ estimates. Sales were also lower than anticipated and the growth was the slowest since the first quarter of 2021 before Wegovy’s US launch, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The active ingredient in Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic mimics a gut hormone called GLP-1 that the body produces immediately after eating.

“There is a clear message that increased competition and slower market expansion is hindering growth across all regions for all GLP-1 products,” Intron Health analyst Naresh Chouhan wrote in a note, calling Novo’s results “very weak.”

By Naomi Kresge

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