The price decline was brutal – at most more than minus 12 percent down to the lowest prices since July 2021. It comes after the company presented negative results from a two-year so-called phase 3 study of a pill that would slow the development of Alzheimer's.
Tested on almost 4,000 patients
American Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk's arch-rival in the diet market, is following suit in futures trading on Wall Street. But Biogen, which is developing Alzheimer's treatments, is rising sharply.
Novo Nordisk's Phase 3 study, based on clinical trials involving nearly 4,000 patients in 40 countries, shows that Evoke and Evoke-plus – pills with the same active ingredient (semaglutide) as the diet pill Wegovy and the diabetes treatment Ozempic – do not have a significant effect on Alzheimer's patients. In light of the results, Novo Nordisk is deciding to stop a planned one-year extension of the study.
The hope was that the pills would have slowed cognitive decline in clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's patients by at least 20 percent compared to patients who received placebo pills.
The stock has plummeted 56 percent
With Monday's price drop, Novo Nordisk's shares have fallen almost 56 percent since the turn of the year. Previous price drops have come after other research setbacks and sharply lowered forecasts.
The gloomy developments this year have, among other things, given rise to major personnel cuts and a purge of the company's management team - both in the CEO's chair and on the board.
Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common causes of dementia and accounts for up to 80 percent of all dementia sufferers in the world, according to Novo Nordisk.
