Novo Nordisk counts 7 million US Wegovy pill prescriptions; Citi still cut its target to DKK 296
The Wegovy pill has notched 7 million US prescriptions, the biggest drug launch in America by volume on the CEO's count. Citi just raised its estimate of the pill's peak sales to $13 billion and still cut Novo's target to DKK 296, because margins through 2030 are guided to stay flat.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The bull case is volume. Novo Nordisk's+0.96% — Novo Nordisk, up 0.96 percent today chief executive counts 7 million US prescriptions for the Wegovy pill, "the best product launch in volume in U.S. across all different companies" 2. Citi agrees on demand: it raised its peak-sales estimate to $13 billion from $10 billion, counts about one million UK packs since July, and expects the pill in at least 20 countries by the end of 2027 1. The bank still cut its target to DKK 296 from DKK 310, kept neutral, and dropped the multiple to 14 times from 15 1.
Novo wrote the flat-margin guide itself
At its Capital Markets Day on September 21, Novo's ambition was to "maintain a broadly stable operating margin" to 2030, with revenue growth only in line with industry peers 4. Citi answered by cutting its 2028-30 operating profit forecasts 2-4% and its 2027-30 earnings growth view to 9% from 12% 1.
The chief executive's defense is that volume proves the economics: "We would not be able to... show a positive growth on the top and the bottom if items like the pill were not doing well and were not profitable" 3. Prescriptions grew "well into double-digit numbers" in the second quarter and 80% of pill takers were new to GLP-1s; the pill still slightly missed forecasts 3.
The revenue line frames the argument: growth ran from +41.1% in Q3 2023 to -0.8% in Q2 2026, with one +31% spike in Q1 2026 9.
From +41% to zero: Novo's revenue growth in twelve quarters
Data
| Revenue, year on year | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | 41.1% |
| Q4 '23 | 40.8% |
| Q1 '24 | 21% |
| Q2 '24 | 23.4% |
| Q3 '24 | 26.3% |
| Q4 '24 | 22.5% |
| Q1 '25 | 19.8% |
| Q2 '25 | 23.6% |
| Q3 '25 | 12.1% |
| Q4 '25 | 4.1% |
| Q1 '26 | 31% |
| Q2 '26 | -0.8% |
Sweden is selling German pills Novo never shipped
Swedish pharmacies began selling German-made Wegovy tablets this week, before any Swedish launch, at roughly 2,000 to 2,600 kronor for a month's supply 5. The route is parallel distribution: packs legally made in one EU country, here Germany, imported into another through channels other than the maker's authorized distributors 5. Novo Sweden's press chief concedes the company does not control the "volumes, dosing and pricing" of its own imported product 5.
Europe's launches run country by country at local prices, and the winners of that ladder are the parallel importers and German wholesalers who capture the gap; the payer is Novo's realized price. Novo cut the Swedish price of injectable Wegovy by 20% on October 1 5; France launches in early November with no reimbursement 6.
American demand routes around the price
TRM Labs traced crypto payments to vendors listing both "research peptides" and fentanyl precursors rising from $28.2 million in 2023 to $37.3 million in 2025, about 57% of identifiable payments from the US 7. Nobody has yet counted what that bypass costs Novo in realized price.
A volume beat that cannot move margins
Citi sees third-quarter pill revenue of DKK 5.3 billion against DKK 4.5 billion consensus, on total sales of DKK 73.5 billion, down about 4% at constant currencies 1. Operating profit rises 18% only against a quarter carrying DKK 9 billion of restructuring charges; strip them out and it falls 15% 1.
Novo has spent DKK 10.2 billion since February buying its own shares at an average DKK 279.95 8, just under Citi's new DKK 296 1: on those numbers Novo itself is the largest committed buyer of its own volume story. Seven million prescriptions proved the demand. Not one of them proved Novo can still set a price.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
