Novo said on Monday it had cut its workforce by 13,000 in the past year as the maker of weight-loss drugs continues to slash costs amid intensifying competition.
The disclosure came as chief executive Mike Doustdar set out his plans to revive Novo’s fortunes at an investor day in London, including by launching new blockbuster drugs and expanding into new treatment areas.
Novo employs 260 people at its facility in Athlone. The weight-loss drug pioneer has said it will invest €432 million in upgrading its Athlone plant to produce the tablet form of its Wegovy drug..
The maker of Ozempic and Wegovy has fallen behind rival Eli Lilly in the multibillion-dollar obesity-drug market and has been cutting costs under Doustdar. The group last year cut 9,000 jobs – including 5,000 in its home country of Denmark – out of a workforce of 78,400.
READ MORE
In its presentation to investors, Novo said a further 4,000 people had left the company over the past year. A spokesperson said most of those exits were due to natural attrition and Novo deciding to leave roles unfilled.
Shares in Novo, which ditched the Nordisk from its name for everyday use last week, fell as much as 7 per cent on Monday morning as investors reacted to Doustdar’s turnaround plans. Those included a pledge to launch more than five “multi-blockbuster” drugs by 2030 and to branch out into new medicines.
Novo is under pressure to build out its pipeline to guard against a loss of revenue as its semaglutide-based obesity and diabetes drugs lose exclusivity in a number of markets.
Doustdar said Novo would become “a larger and more diversified company by 2035”. As well as continuing to grow its portfolio of obesity, diabetes and blood disorder medicines, the company will expand into new therapeutic areas including liver and cardiovascular health.
Novo is targeting combined sales of 150 billion Danish krone (€20 billion) from its pipeline of drugs by 2035. It generated total sales of 309 billion Danish Krone last year.
Soaring energy costs and why ‘we can’t protect everyone from the impact of war’
Doustdar added that Novo would pursue deal making to grow its pipeline, though the company would “not start with the size of the deal but with the quality of the asset”.
“We have a pipeline that is almost second to none ... Where you see a gap you should probably expect us to be more active in looking at business development acquisitions,” he said.
Novo investors want Novo to claw back ground lost to rival Lilly, whose Mounjaro weight-loss jabs are outselling its Wegovy injections, and withstand competition from generic manufacturers. Semaglutide, the active ingredient in its blockbuster Ozempic and Wegovy drugs, has lost patent protection in India, Brazil, Turkey and China this year, and faces the loss of exclusivity in Europe and the US from the early 2030s.
Novo has also suffered a number of trial setbacks in recent months, including the recent late-stage trial failure of a drug aimed at reducing the risk of heart attacks.
It remains ahead of Lilly in the sale of weight-loss pills, however, and is expected to launch CagriSema, a next-generation obesity drug, next year.
On Monday Novo unveiled results for a new CagriSema trial in patients with diabetes showing that 1.0mg of the drug delivered an average weight loss of 12.4 per cent, compared with 9.1 per cent for 5mg tirzepatide, the key ingredient in Lilly’s weight-loss drugs.
Martin Holst Lange, Novo’s chief scientific officer, said his division planned to advance up to 15 trials a year into human clinical studies, starting from next year. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
