Novo CEO Mike Maziar Doustdar insists that his company is ahead of fierce rival Eli Lilly as oral Wegovy rises to 8 million total prescriptions since its January launch.
It’s a battle of the numbers, with both Novo and Eli Lilly claiming superiority in the early oral GLP-1 race. But who is right? Novo CEO Mike Maziar Doustdar insists his rival doesn’t have all the data.
Last week, Lilly reported that Foundayo has secured 40% of new patient starts since the oral GLP-1 entered the market in the second quarter. This would leave Novo with 60% of the market, which it entered with the Wegovy pill at the beginning of the year.
But Doustdar said his rival is relying solely on reports from clinical research provider IQVIA, which does not provide a full portrait of his company’s early market dominance. The CEO, in reporting third quarter earnings on Wednesday, said that the Wegovy pill has actually secured 80% of the burgeoning market, while Lilly only has 20%.
“They have actually themselves, led by their CFO, mentioned that they are looking at IQVIA, which covers 90 to 95% of their scripts and only 65% of our scripts,” Doustdar explained.
But Novo has prescriptions coming through other channels, like its collaboration with telehealth companies Hims & Hers, Ro and more. These are not captured in IQVIA’s data, leaving an incomplete picture of the oral weight loss space—a picture that Lilly has relied on to tout Foundayo’s prowess.
“Those companies do not share their data with IQVIA,” Doustdar said of the telehealth providers. “If they did, then you actually would get to our numbers.”
And those numbers would put Novo on top, he added. “This underpins the strong competitiveness of the Wegovy pill label, with highest proven weight loss for an oral obesity medication, the ease of use and familiarity with the semaglutide molecule being the one.”
Novo reported on Wednesday’s call that it has reached 8 million cumulative prescriptions for the Wegovy pill since launch—what Doustdar called “the strongest pharma launch by volume in the U.S. in the last decade.” For the third quarter, Novo recorded sales of 5.39 million DKK ($811.6 million).
“We see a long runway for the pill in the U.S. with current and incoming initiatives expected to drive more uptake into the year to come,” the CEO continued.
The Wegovy franchise, which includes the pill and an injectable at multiple doses, has allowed Novo to offer patients a range of options with one familiar molecule. Lilly, on the other hand, has admitted that launching a completely new drug like Foundayo put them at a slight disadvantage.
But as Doustdar said on Wednesday morning’s call, “this is still at early innings. Many people are still in need of treatments and have not received treatments.”
Lilly said the same last week, with CEO David Ricks touting a massive 39% revenue increase thanks to unprecedented demand in the weight loss markets.
Doustdar said that 80% of people who are starting on the Wegovy pill are new to treatment, meaning the oral market is driving an expansion into new patients that the injectables had not tapped.
“It is really the market expansion that drives the growth for us in mid- and longer term, as well as for our competitor,” Doustdar said. “This is why this GLP-1 market has become so interesting because there are just so many people in need.”
Checking boxes
While Novo’s third quarter revenue did not near the heights of its American rival Lilly—which reported $24.4 billion for the period—shares rallied for the Danish pharma on what was a strong consensus beat.
The semaglutide maker reported 79.2 billion DKK ($11.9 billion) in net sales for the quarter, representing 6% growth compared to the same period a year earlier. Analysts had been expecting about $11.07 billion in net sales, according to Yahoo Finance.
Adjusted operating profit was 31.72 billion DKK ($4.77 billion). This represented a 27% increase over the third quarter last year, when Novo embarked on a company-wide cost cutting initiative that resulted in thousands of job losses.
Novo’s shares climbed more than 6% to $42.69 in pre-market trading on Wednesday. Year to date, the stock has declined 21%.
But Novo is looking to grow, with executives predicting during a September investor day that the company will reach $23 billion in sales in 2035. This projection disappointed investors and analysts, who saw the plan as too familiar.
Investors had also hoped for a more aggressive stance on business development. Doustdar vowed to remain disciplined but focused on filling gaps in Novo’s pipeline across existing therapeutic areas.
“For us, it’s not about running and making sure we close a certain number of deals just to satisfy the headline news,” Doustdar said. “For us, [it’s] to make sure that we deeply search into what is strategically fitting into our portfolio of products and our strategy, and we’ll continue doing that.”
