Weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are manufactured by Danish company Novo Nordisk. Photo / Getty Images
Weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are manufactured by Danish company Novo Nordisk. Photo / Getty Images
Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk became Europe’s most valuable company this week as investors lusted over earnings from popular weight-loss drugs.
The manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy has seen its share price rise 67 per cent in the past 12 months to DKK$1310.80 (NZ$320.76).
Its total market valuereached US$424.7 billion last week, bumping luxury fashion group LVMH from the top valuation spot, according to Reuters and Refinitiv data.
Eli Lily, a United States company that makes the so-called obesity injection Mounjaro, has witnessed a share price rise of 81 per cent in the past year.
If the three drugs proved successful with few side-effects and no long-term risks for users, Fisher Funds portfolio manager Sam Dickie puts their potential market value in the trillions.
“To be clear, we have never seen a potential or implied drug class of this size,” he said on the Herald’s Stock Takes podcast.
“Take those two companies alone, they’re approaching US$1 trillion of market cap.”
Listen to Dickie discuss the opportunity for Novo Nordisk and the results from New Zealand’s reporting season in the season final episode of Stock Takes.
