Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 3, 2026
2 min readLast updated: February 3, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleNovo Nordisk's 2026 sales forecast causes obesity stocks to slump, with shares of major drugmakers like Eli Lilly and Structure Therapeutics falling significantly.
Feb 3 (Reuters) - Shares of obesity drugmakers and developers slid on Tuesday after Novo Nordisk forecast a sharper-than-expected sales decline for 2026, underscoring intensifying competition in the blockbuster weight-loss market.
Eli Lilly was down about 4%, Structure Therapeutics fell 6.2%, while Altimmune dropped 4.2%. Viking Therapeutics declined more than 3% and Amgen slipped nearly 1% in afternoon trading.
The Danish drugmaker said it expects sales to drop between 5% and 13% this year, compared with analysts' average expectation of a 2% decline. Its U.S.-listed shares fell 13.8% to $50.83.
Wegovy-maker Novo also reported a 14% fall in fourth-quarter operating profit to 31.7 billion Danish crowns, slightly above the estimate of 31.2 billion crowns.
The selloff comes as Wall Street is reassessing long-held expectations that the obesity drug market could hit $150 billion early next decade, as U.S. prices for GLP-1 treatments from Novo and Lilly fall sharply and competition intensifies in the cash-pay consumer market.
Analysts have pushed out peak sales timelines and trimmed forecasts, with some now seeing the market closer to $80 billion to $105 billion by 2030.
($1 = 6.3201 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
Market capitalisation is the total market value of a company's outstanding shares of stock, calculated by multiplying the share price by the total number of shares.
An obesity drug is a medication designed to assist in weight loss by suppressing appetite, increasing feelings of fullness, or reducing fat absorption.
Stock performance refers to the change in the value of a company's stock over time, which can be influenced by various factors including market conditions and company performance.
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