By George Glover
Novo Nordisk plans to slash the price of Ozempic and Wegovy in the U.S. next year, but the discounts weren't enough to give the Danish drugmaker's shares a much-needed boost.
Novo's American depositary receipts dropped 2.5% to $38.64 ahead of the opening bell, having tanked 16% the previous session. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were 0.1% higher, edging up following Monday's artificial-intelligence selloff.
Novo plans to list both Ozempic and Wegovy for $675 a month, effective Jan. 1, 2027, executives told The Wall Street Journal. That's a 50% cut from Wegovy's current price, and a 34% discount for Ozempic.
Novo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Barron's.
Novo has never cut list prices for the drugs in the U.S. before. The company is currently locked in a battle for dominance of the weight-loss market with rival Eli Lilly.
Novo also said on Tuesday that UBT251, an experimental obesity drug it is jointly developing with United Laboratories, had helped patients to lose weight in a phase 2 trial in China.
UBT251 led to a mean weight loss of 19.7% after 24 weeks of treatment and also improved patients' waist circumference, blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipids relative to placebo, the companies said.
UBT251 is what's known as a triple G weight-loss agonist -- meaning it combines the hormones GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon. Ozempic and Wegovy only mimic GLP-1, a gut hormone that decreases appetite.
Novo and United Laboratories' subsidiary United Bio-Technology signed an agreement to develop the drug in March 2025.
The price cuts and trial update didn't look likely to give Novo shares a much-needed boost. They plummeted on Monday after Novo its CagriSema obesity drug had failed to outperform Eli Lilly's Zepbound in a trial.
As of Monday's close, the stock was down 56% over the past 12 months, dragged down by fears that demand for its weight-loss drugs could flatline. The selloff gathered pace earlier this month when Novo said it expects sales to fall in 2026.
Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 24, 2026 07:48 ET (12:48 GMT)
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