In 2023, Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk briefly surpassed the luxury conglomerate LVMH to become Europe’s most valuable company by market capitalization. Its share price was propelled upwards by soaring sales of its breakthrough weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
After pioneering GLP-1 treatments to combat obesity, Novo Nordisk has struggled to build on this success. Eli Lilly, its U.S. rival and the maker of Mounjaro, has eaten into Novo Nordisk’s market share and expects to launch its own weight-loss pill in Europe and the U.K. in early 2027. Since 2024, Eli Lilly’s share price has almost doubled, while Novo Nordisk’s has dropped by 70%.
Karsten Munk, CFO at Novo Nordisk, admits it has been a “rocky road” for the business. In September 2025, it announced that it would be cutting 9,000 jobs as it aimed to reduce costs by $1.2 billion. Overall headcount is now 12,000 lower than a year ago.
“We managed our resources and our cost base in a very disciplined manner because we were in a period of low growth,” he says, adding that the business has no plans to pursue a second round of company-wide redundancies. “We really need to ensure we invest in the growth assets we have, such as the Wegovy pill, and continue to invest significantly in R&D so we have future winners and growth drivers.”
