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Reuben Gregg Brewer, The Motley Fool
Sat, June 6, 2026 astatine 8:35 AM CDT 4 min read
The pharmaceutical manufacture is highly competitory and driven by innovation. Those 2 facts couldn't beryllium connected immoderate clearer show than successful the contention betwixt Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) successful the recently created GLP-1 weight-loss space. While Eli Lilly looks similar the victor close now, Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill is performing amended than expected. That's important, and it could crook the banal into a semipermanent bargain for dividend lovers.
Novo Nordisk made mistakes and mislaid the pb
Novo Nordisk was archetypal to marketplace with a GLP-1 weight-loss drug. The lone occupation is that it couldn't support up with the request for its Wegovy shot. That allowed compounders to participate the U.S. marketplace for the drug, limiting the company's maturation opportunities. It besides gave rival Eli Lilly a large opening erstwhile it launched its ain GLP-1 options, Mounjaro and Zepbound.
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Eli Lilly's drugs were besides much effective, truthful the company's fiscal show was beardown portion Novo Nordisk was fundamentally near playing catch-up. Investors reacted by dumping Novo Nordisk and buying Eli Lilly. The quality couldn't beryllium much stark, with Novo Nordisk down 40% implicit the past 3 years and Eli Lilly up implicit 150%.
However, determination was an important alteration astatine the commencement of 2026. That was erstwhile Novo Nordisk released a pill mentation of Wegovy. Many consumers similar pills implicit shots, truthful this improvement truly opens GLP-1 drugs to much customers. That's been proven, with the pharmaceutical institution seeing adjacent faster maturation with the pill than with the shot. And the pill doesn't look to beryllium cannibalizing the shot, truthful the GLP-1 marketplace is so expanding. This is adjacent amended show than the institution had hoped for, with the pill generating 1.3 cardinal prescriptions successful the archetypal 4th alone. One period later, erstwhile the institution provided its first-quarter net results, the fig of prescriptions had catapulted to 2 million.
Novo Nordisk is facing a pugnacious twelvemonth
That said, Novo Nordisk warned investors that 2026 would beryllium a hard year. Wegovy is losing patent extortion successful India, which is putting unit connected the company's income successful that ample market. And Novo Nordisk agreed to chopped prices successful the U.S. market, which is besides weighing connected the apical line. Management expects measurement to offset terms implicit the agelong word arsenic the Wegovy pill draws successful much customers to the GLP-1 space. Given the pill's aboriginal success, that storyline sounds progressively likely.
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