Novo Nordisk lifts 2026 outlook a third time as Wegovy pill sales hit 5.4 billion crowns

Novo Nordisk raised its full-year 2026 outlook on Wednesday, the third increase this year, after sales of its Wegovy obesity pill came in well above analyst estimates. In Company Announcement No 65/2026, filed with the SEC, the company said it now expects adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit to change by between -2% and +2% at constant exchange rates. In August the range was -6% to 0%.

Copenhagen shares rose as much as 6.6% in early trading and were up 4.2% by 1318 GMT, Reuters reported, which it said was on course for the biggest one-day gain since June 19. CNBC put the later gain at 3.4%, which still left the stock down about 13% for the year.

The quarter against estimates

Third quarter 2026	Reported	Consensus
Wegovy pill sales	DKK 5.39 billion	DKK 4.62 billion (Reuters)
Adjusted sales	DKK 79.20 billion	DKK 73.22 billion (Reuters); 73.6 billion (FactSet, via CNBC)
Adjusted operating profit	DKK 31.72 billion	DKK 28.39 billion (Reuters); 28.6 billion (CNBC)

The company's own table shows Wegovy pill sales of DKK 5,394 million, of which DKK 4,178 million came from the US and DKK 1,216 million from international markets. Reuters said that was up 53% from the second quarter and about $810 million at current rates. Adjusted sales rose 4% at constant exchange rates, and adjusted operating profit rose 27%. By our arithmetic the sales beat was about 8% against the Reuters consensus and the profit beat about 12%. Estimates differ slightly by source, so we show both.

What the guidance change really says

The headline is a raise, but look at where it came from. The bottom of the range moved up four percentage points (-6% to -2%) and the top moved up two (0% to +2%), so the midpoint moved from -3% to 0%. Novo says the improvement is "driven by increased expectations for GLP-1 product sales." Nothing in the announcement says the business is returning to broad growth: the midpoint is flat.

The nine-month figures put that in context. Adjusted sales for the first nine months are up 2% at constant exchange rates, and adjusted operating profit is up 8%. The top of the full-year sales range is therefore the pace Novo has already delivered, and the low end implies a drop in the fourth quarter. That is our inference from the company's numbers, not a statement from Novo. The company also said growth rates will fluctuate across quarters.

The currency picture improved too. Novo says reported growth in Danish crowns will now be in line with constant-currency growth. In August it had guided to rates about 1 point lower for sales and 2 points lower for operating profit. It also raised its free cash flow outlook to DKK 60 to 70 billion from DKK 45 to 55 billion, and cut planned capital spending to about DKK 50 billion from about DKK 55 billion.

Where the growth is, and is not

The split is the part to read closely. International sales rose 8% at constant exchange rates in the quarter, to DKK 37.3 billion. US sales rose 1%, to DKK 41.9 billion, and are down 2% over nine months. Reuters said the outlook assumes international growth and a US decline for the year.

The pill is not simply adding to injectable sales. Reuters reported US injectable Wegovy sales fell 13% at constant exchange rates, while combined US Wegovy sales, injectable plus pill, rose 21%. Novo's own table shows injectable Wegovy at DKK 20.4 billion for the quarter, down 2% globally. Put differently, part of the pill's sales is patients switching within Novo's own range. The pill's DKK 5.39 billion is about 6.8% of third-quarter sales on our calculation, a bit above the roughly 6% of expected full-year sales Reuters cited.

Novo estimates it holds about 80% of new-to-brand US pill prescriptions, according to Reuters, and the pill is on sale in eight markets. The company is now targeting more than 20 countries by mid-2027, ahead of the end-2027 goal it set in September, Reuters reported.

The risks the company and analysts name

• A government program is flattering the US volumes. Reuters reported that a US program letting seniors obtain obesity drugs for $50 a month, which began in July, drove much of the roughly 20% quarter-on-quarter rise in US pill volumes. Without it, Novo's US head said, the obesity category was roughly flat from May to October, and he also pointed to seasonality.
• Competition. Eli Lilly's Foundayo pill is winning a growing share of new prescriptions, and Lilly raised its own outlook last week. CNBC noted that Foundayo missed analyst expectations in Lilly's quarter, though Lilly said US prescriptions and new patients doubled from the prior quarter.
• Pricing and pipeline. Citi kept a neutral rating, citing uncertainty over near-, mid- and long-term pricing for weight-loss drugs and the lack of a clear successor to Wegovy. CNBC also pointed to CagriSema, which it said failed to beat Lilly's medicines in a February trial.
• Named headwinds in the outlook. Novo lists lower realized prices, including the US most-favored-nation agreement, reduced Medicaid obesity coverage, semaglutide patent expiry in certain markets, and pill cannibalization and seasonality. The filing text we could access was truncated before its full risk section, so this list may be incomplete.
• Management turnover. Finance chief Karsten Munk Knudsen leaves at the end of December. Luigi La Corte, now CFO of Galderma, succeeds him.

Profit that is not in the adjusted number

Reported operating profit tells a different story from the adjusted figure. It was DKK 23.0 billion in the quarter, down 9% at constant exchange rates, against adjusted profit of DKK 31.7 billion. The gap includes DKK 8.7 billion of impairments: DKK 4.6 billion tied to ziltivekimab, whose Phase 3 trials ZEUS and HERMES did not meet their primary endpoints, and DKK 4.1 billion for right-sizing the manufacturing network. Those are excluded from adjusted results. About DKK 3.5 billion of other one-time costs is left inside adjusted operating profit.

Nine-month reported sales of DKK 254.5 billion (up 13%) are also much higher than adjusted sales of DKK 227.7 billion (up 2%) because of a DKK 26.8 billion non-cash reversal of a 340B provision in the first quarter, which Novo excludes. Readers comparing headlines should check which basis a figure uses.

CEO Mike Doustdar said the turnaround "is not done based on one data point," CNBC reported. Reuters noted that the shares remain down more than 70% from their peak, when the company's market value topped $600 billion.

Sources: Novo Nordisk Company Announcement No 65/2026 (Form 6-K) on SEC EDGAR; Reuters; CNBC. Share moves were intraday at the time of reporting and may have changed. Percentages marked as our calculations are Chronicle arithmetic. This is market information, not investment advice.