Deep Dive: Novo Nordisk Slashes Ozempic and Wegovy Prices by 50% — What the GLP-1 Price War Means for Patients, Investors, and Big Pharma

The scale of Novo Nordisk's price reduction is significant by any measure. Wegovy's injectable and new oral formulations will see their list prices drop from approximately $1,350 per month to $675 — a 50% haircut. Ozempic and Rybelsus, priced around $1,027 monthly, will fall to the same $675 level, representing reductions of roughly 34%. The company is specifically targeting insured patients whose out-of-pocket costs are tied to list prices, particularly the growing number of Americans enrolled in high-deductible health plans or coinsurance benefit designs.

According to Jamey Millar, Novo's head of U.S. operations, patients on high-deductible plans currently pay 'more or less the full list price' until they meet their annual deductible threshold — and many defer treatment entirely rather than shoulder the expense. Others face coinsurance structures that tie their costs to 25% to 33% of the list price. A $675 list price would reduce the monthly coinsurance burden to between $169 and $223, compared with as much as $446 under the current Wegovy price.

The timing is not coincidental. New Medicare-negotiated prices under the Inflation Reduction Act take effect in 2027, setting the government rate for Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus at just $274 per month. Novo has also been offering direct-to-consumer prices of $149 to $499 per month for cash-paying patients. CEO Mike Doustdar has stated the company aims to reach approximately 15 million new patients when Medicare begins covering obesity treatments later this year. The commercial price cut is designed to ensure the insured population doesn't get left behind in the access expansion.

Novo Nordisk's share price tells a story of rapidly deteriorating investor confidence. Trading at $37.93 on Wednesday — down 1.7% on the day — the stock has cratered from its 52-week high of $93.80, a decline of nearly 60% over the past year. At its current price, the stock's P/E ratio has compressed to just 10.4x trailing earnings, a remarkable valuation for a company that generated DKK 102.4 billion ($14.7 billion) in net income in 2025. For context, Eli Lilly trades at a P/E of 45x, reflecting the market's dramatically different growth expectations for the two GLP-1 leaders.

Novo's full-year 2025 results, reported earlier this month, showed total revenue of DKK 308.4 billion across the four quarters, with a gross profit margin of approximately 81%. But the company stunned investors by guiding for a 5% to 13% decline in both sales and operating profit for 2026 — which would mark the first annual sales decline since 2017. Volume 47% above average on Wednesday underscores the intensity of selling pressure: 34.5 million shares changed hands against an average daily volume of 23.4 million.

Jyske Bank analyst Henrik Hallengreen Laustsen summarized the mood bluntly: 'Confidence in the share is at rock bottom.' Meanwhile, JP Morgan downgraded Novo to Neutral on February 24, while Argus Research had already cut its rating to Hold in December 2025. Legal risks are mounting as well — the Schall Law Firm announced on February 25 that it is investigating potential securities law violations by Novo Nordisk, focusing on whether the company made false or misleading statements to investors.

Novo Nordisk may have pioneered the GLP-1 weight-loss category, but Eli Lilly has seized the commanding market position. Lilly now controls roughly 60% of the GLP-1 market compared to Novo's 40%, driven by its Mounjaro and Zepbound franchise, which generated combined sales of approximately $37 billion in 2025. Novo's Ozempic and Wegovy brought in about $32 billion — still massive, but the gap has widened meaningfully over the past 18 months.

Lilly's advantages are structural. The Indianapolis-based company boasts eight blockbuster drugs generating over $1 billion annually, spanning oncology, immunology, and gene therapy alongside its diabetes and obesity portfolio. Novo, by contrast, relies on six blockbusters concentrated overwhelmingly in metabolic disease. Its two largest drugs accounted for 67% of total sales in 2025, versus 56% for Lilly's top two — a concentration risk that investors are now aggressively repricing.

Critically, Lilly has not yet matched Novo's price cuts. Zepbound and Mounjaro still carry higher list prices, which gives Lilly room to respond strategically — or to hold prices and protect margins while volume trends remain favorable. The Motley Fool noted on February 24 that Novo's price cut 'puts the list price of weight-loss drug Zepbound under pressure,' with Lilly shares dipping 0.9% to $1,033 in sympathy. But Lilly's $975 billion market cap — nearly six times Novo's $169 billion — illustrates just how far apart the market values these two companies' futures.

Novo's price concession is not happening in a vacuum — it's a response to a competitive landscape that is transforming rapidly on multiple fronts. Compounding pharmacies have been selling copycat versions of Novo's branded GLP-1 drugs at significantly lower prices, eroding the company's retail market and contributing to its projected 2026 sales decline. Meanwhile, the list of large-cap pharma companies developing weight-loss drugs continues to grow: AstraZeneca, Roche, Amgen (trading at $383.56, near its 52-week high of $387.49), and Pfizer (through its acquisition of Metsera) are all advancing candidates through clinical trials.

The entrance of diversified pharma giants with deep pockets and broad distribution networks poses a particular threat to Novo's concentrated business model. Amgen, with a market cap of $207 billion and an established commercial infrastructure, is developing MariTide, an antibody-based obesity therapy. Pfizer, valued at $153 billion, gained its GLP-1 pipeline through the Metsera acquisition. These companies are pitching investors on more differentiated weight-loss approaches — longer-acting therapies, novel mechanisms, and combination treatments — designed to carve out market share from the two incumbents.

Novo is not standing still, however. On Wednesday, the company announced a partnership with Vivtex Corporation worth up to $2.1 billion to develop next-generation oral biologic medicines for obesity and diabetes. Vivtex will license oral drug-delivery technologies to Novo, potentially enabling future drugs that don't require injection. This complements the recent launch of the Wegovy pill, which had a strong initial uptake but faces an imminent competitive threat from Lilly's own oral formulation expected to launch in Q2 2026.

At a P/E of 10.4x and a dividend yield of 3.6%, Novo Nordisk is trading at metrics rarely seen for a global pharmaceutical leader generating $14.7 billion in annual net income. The stock sits at levels that prompted Benzinga to ask whether the 40% decline is 'creating a deep-value moment.' CICC initiated coverage in January with an Outperform rating and a $73.50 price target — roughly double the current share price. But the bull case requires significant faith in Novo's ability to execute a volume-driven recovery strategy in a market defined by accelerating price compression.

The financial foundation remains strong in absolute terms. Novo generated DKK 119.1 billion ($17 billion) in operating cash flow in 2025, though free cash flow dropped sharply to DKK 29 billion from DKK 70 billion the prior year as capital expenditures surged to fund manufacturing expansion. The company's return on equity, while declining from 78.5% in 2023 to 52.8% in 2025, remains extraordinary by any industry standard. Its debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67 is manageable, and interest coverage of 18.8x provides ample financial flexibility.

The bearish counterargument is formidable. Analyst estimates for 2027 project quarterly EPS in the range of DKK 4.87 to DKK 5.79 — suggesting modest growth at best from 2025 levels, and potentially declining earnings if pricing pressure accelerates faster than volume growth can compensate. With the company guiding for its first sales decline in nearly a decade and CagriSema's trial results disappointing, the pipeline catalyst that bulls had counted on is materially weakened. The stock's 50-day moving average of $53.39 and 200-day average of $57.86 tower above the current price, confirming the severity of the technical breakdown.