After a 12 months that has been something however easy crusing, pharmaceutical large is closing out 2025 on a optimistic be aware. Shares obtained a major 7% enhance on Dec. 23. That day, markets reacted to the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of Novo’s weight reduction capsule.
Whereas Novo shares have delivered a complete return of round -40% in 2025 as of the Dec. 30 shut, the FDA approval is a growth that would catalyze stronger efficiency for NVO inventory in 2026. Let’s dive into the difficulties that Novo has confronted in 2025 and acquire an up to date outlook on the inventory going ahead.
Q3 2025 Exhibits How Quick the Development Narrative Modified
To grasp Novo’s path ahead, context is essential. The corporate took the burden loss drug market by storm in 2021 by the approval of Wegovy, clinically often known as semaglutide. Observing the development of Novo’s gross sales development tells the corporate’s story over the previous few years.
Novo’s Q3 2025 outcomes are the newest launch from the corporate.
Thus, we’ll observe the Q3 gross sales development from 2021 to 2025 to match the numbers apples-to-apples.
Novo’s Q3 Gross sales Development by 12 months
2021: 15%
2022: 28%
2023: 29%
2024: 21%
2025: 5%
After gross sales development accelerated by 2023, the quantity fell off a cliff final quarter. The vital inflection level got here in November 2023, when the FDA permitted weight reduction drug Zepbound, clinically often known as tirzepatide. Zepbound helped drive Lilly’s whole gross sales development of 54% in Q3 2025, a large distinction to Novo’s 5% determine.
By February 2025, Lilly had overtaken Novo when it comes to market share within the U.S. incretin analogs market, as seen on slide 10 of Lilly’s Q3 earnings. “Incretin analogs” is a blanket time period used to explain GLP-1 and comparable medicine. Since then, Lilly’s lead has solely grown. This comes as injectable tirzepatide is about 50% simpler at inducing weight reduction than injectable semaglutide. Nonetheless, Novo’s newest drug could enable the corporate to regain momentum in a conflict it’s dropping
NVO’s Tablet: Potential First Mover and Efficacy Benefits Over LLY
Oral weight reduction medicine have grow to be a brand new entrance on which Novo and Lilly are competing. Each firms goal to achieve sufferers who’re averse to injectables, and profit from decrease manufacturing prices whereas serving to sufferers keep their weight reduction. The approval of its oral Wegovy capsule provides Novo the excessive floor in a number of methods.
First off, Novo has a head begin on Lilly, because it expects to start promoting the capsule in January 2026. In the meantime, Lilly’s oral answer, orforglipron, isn’t but permitted. Most count on that the FDA will approve orforglipron, however not till late March on the earliest. This implies Novo will probably have a number of months to realize market share amongst oral GLP-1 sufferers.
Moreover, the efficacy of the 2 medicine reveals that Novo might be able to keep its lead. Novo’s newest information on oral Wegovy confirmed that sufferers misplaced 16.6% of their weight on common after 64 weeks. This compares favorably to a examine that Lilly launched in September which confirmed that orforglipron sufferers misplaced a mean of 12.4% of their weight after 72 weeks.
Adjusting for placebo weight reduction and sufferers who discounted the remedies narrows this lead—adjusted figures are roughly 11.2% weight reduction for oral Wegovy, and roughly 9.1% weight reduction for orforglipron.
Nonetheless, oral Wegovy sufferers misplaced extra weight than orforglipron sufferers in a shorter period of time. This distinction could lead on sufferers to remain on oral Wegovy even after orforglipron’s launch and make medical doctors extra more likely to advocate Novo’s therapy to new sufferers.
What FDA Approval of the Wegovy Tablet Adjustments for 2026
Novo urgently wants a product that can reaccelerate its development, and oral Wegovy might be exactly that. With shares down considerably, it will not be shocking to see Novo shares rebound solidly in 2026.
Nonetheless, the agency’s long-term success shall be predicated on its potential to proceed delivering new and improved weight reduction remedies. One drug within the late-stage pipeline, CagriSema, helped sufferers lose a mean of twenty-two.7% of their weight at 68 weeks, and will go a great distance in attaining this.
Total, the outlook on Novo shares seems solidly skewed to the upside. Nonetheless, oral Wegovy’s gross sales development in 2026 shall be key to evaluating the agency’s potential to maintain up with Lilly long-term.
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