Novo Nordisk confident despite Trump tariff risk as sales of weight-loss jab soar | Pharmaceuticals industry

Europe’s biggest company, Novo Nordisk, has rebuffed fears of a hit to its business from Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, as it reported better-than-expected revenues after sales of its weight-loss drug Wegovy almost doubled.

Since taking office, the US president has imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada – since paused for a month – and China, and has said levies of imports from the EU will “definitely happen”.

Last month, the chief executive of Novo Nordisk, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, was one of several Danish company bosses to meet the country’s government to discuss concerns about Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, part of the kingdom of Denmark.

Asked about tariffs at a press conference on Wednesday, Jørgensen said Novo was “not immune, but we are confident our business is in a good position to meet the demands of the new [US] administration”.

The comments came as the company revealed sales of Wegovy jumped by 86% last year, while revenues for its other leading obesity and diabetes drug, Ozempic, rose 26%.

The drugmaker reported a rise in total sales of 26% to a higher-than-forecast 290bn kroner (£32bn), but forecast sales growth would slow this year to between 16% and 24%.

Soaring demand for both anti-obesity treatments has turned Novo into Europe’s most valuable company, although it briefly lost the title to the French luxury goods company LVMH last month after it released disappointing clinical trial results for a next-generation obesity drug, CagriSema.

The drug did not achieve its target of 25% weight loss in a late-stage trial. Novo said on Wednesday that it planned to submit the drug for regulatory approval early next year, slightly later than its previous expectation of late 2025.

Jørgensen said CagriSema was more potent than Wegovy, and that a new trial would look at different doses and duration to further examine its potential, after recent trial data disappointed the market. In December, Novo Nordisk reported that people who took CagriSema achieved a weight loss of 22.7% after 68 weeks, while 40.4% of patients reached a weight loss of 25%.

Another new obesity drug called amycretin had positive results in an early stage trial.

Novo shares rose by 3.7% on the back of the annual results but are still down by 37% since hitting a record high last June. It bought Catalent, a drug manufacturer for $16.5bn (£13.2bn) last year to ramp up production of its weight-loss drugs. Jørgensen said more than 45 million people were now benefiting from the company’s obesity and diabetes treatments.

It comes after the US rival Eli Lilly, which makes the obesity drug Zepbound and Mounjaro for diabetes, reported weaker-than-expected sales last month.

In separate results published on Wednesday, Britain’s second-biggest drugmaker GSK lifted its long-term sales targets as it hailed a strong drug pipeline, sending its shares to the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard on Wednesday morning.

The company raised its sales target to more than £40bn by 2031, and the shares jumped by 5.8%, putting them on track for their biggest one-day gain since 2022.

GSK said its sales rose by 7% to £31.4bn at constant exchange rates last year, as revenues from specialty medicines, HIV and cancer medications grew while vaccine sales fell. Sales of oncology treatments, where the company has been investing, doubled to more than £1bn.

However, its profits dropped by 34% to £3.5bn last year after it paid out £1.8bn to settle thousands of cases in US courts over its heartburn drug Zantac, amid claims that the drug caused cancer. It said the vast majority of state court cases had been resolved or dismissed, leaving less than 1% of cases.

Asked about Trump’s new US tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, the GSK chief executive, Emma Walmsley, said “the tariff situation is fast moving” but the company has “either no exposure or minimal exposure” to those three countries. She also noted that “medicines traditionally have been excluded from global tariffs in recognition of the fact that it matters for patients”.