Novo Nordisk shares fall more than 4% on disappointing obesity pill data By Reuters

By Maggie Fick and Greta Rosen Fondahn

LONDON (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk ( NYSE: ) fell more than 4 percent on Friday to its lowest level since Aug. 10 after the Danish drugmaker reported results from a phase 2a trial of its experimental obesity pill, monlunabant, which was below market expectations.

Shares fell 4.3% at 13:30 GMT, their lowest since Aug. 8, after the company announced the main results of its study of monlunabant, an experimental drug it acquired last year as part of a billion acquisition of dollars of the Canadian biotechnology company Inversago Pharmaceuticals.

The company said at its stock market day in March that it expected weight loss to reach 15%, on par with its super obesity injection Wegovy.

But in the main study results published on Friday, the once-daily pill resulted in a weight loss of only 6.5% after 16 weeks.

That weight loss “is not what the optimists are looking for,” Nordnet analysts told Reuters. “Competition is intensifying. Investors are becoming more cautious about the potential.”