By Aimee Look and Mauro Orru

Novo Nordisk said its Wegovy weight-loss pill was approved in the U.K., marking the first green light in Europe for the oral version of the drug and a significant win for the Danish drugmaker as it seeks to expand adoption of the treatment.

The group said the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approved the pill as a once-daily treatment. It is expected to be available via private prescription within weeks as an alternative to weekly injections for overweight or obese adults, Novo Nordisk said.

Emil Kongshoj Larsen, Novo Nordisk's executive vice president of international operations, said the U.K. was the first country in Europe to approve its Wegovy pill. The approval comes days after the company said prescriptions for the pill have exceeded three million since its January launch.

Wegovy has turbocharged sales at the company since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved it in 2021 as a weight-loss medication. However, the group faces stiff competition from the likes of Eli Lilly and other companies fighting for a slice of the lucrative diabetes and obesity markets.

The U.K.'s MHRA is the third regulatory authority globally to license the treatment following the FDA and the Emirates Drug Establishment in the United Arab Emirates, a boost for Novo Nordisk as it plans to launch the pill in more markets in the second half of the year.

Separately on Thursday, Novo Nordisk said it had identified a cybersecurity incident in which some nonpublic data, including personal information, were copied externally without authorization and that it was informing affected parties.

The company said it launched an investigation with support from external cybersecurity experts and took certain internal IT systems offline as a precaution. It said its core business operations weren't affected by the incident.

Write to Aimee Look at aimee.look@wsj.com and Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 11, 2026 12:22 ET (16:22 GMT)

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