Image by Sergei Gapon / AFP via Getty / Futurism
Novo Nordisk, the Denmark-based pharmaceutical company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy, looks like it’s being toppled off its GLP-1 throne.
In a statement to Reuters, the Danish conglomerate admitted that it “currently [has] a hiring freeze in non-business critical areas.”
Though Novo offered no additional explanation, the writing has been on the wall for months that the once-dominant drug manufacturer is in big financial trouble.
Despite ushering in the weight-loss injectable craze and reaching a whopping $604 billion market cap in March 2024, Novo has for the past 18 months suffered hit after financial hit as compounding companies cut into its profit margin by selling cheaper, off-brand Ozempic — and as Eli Lilly, the makers of rival jabs Mounjaro and Zepbound, surged ahead thanks to promising news about its orforglipron GLP-1 pill.
By May of 2025, Novo’s now-former chief executive, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, announced that he would be stepping down, citing “recent market challenges” — a reference, it seems, to the pressures of captaining a sinking ship.
After months of plummeting sales, the company in late July issued a profit warning, or notice to the stock market that its profits were projected to be lower than previously expected. With news that its outgoing CEO was being replaced by Maziar Mike Doustdar — a former executive vice president at the company whose internal hiring seemingly spooked investors — Novo shares plummeted 21 percent to a low of $46.90, its lowest price in three years.
With all those stumbles in just a few short months, Novo is now not only pausing hiring, but also considering laying off some portion of its staffers, who according to the company’s jobs page currently total more than 77,000.
In an interview with Reuters on the way out the door earlier this month, Jørgensen admitted that the drugmaker “probably won’t be able to avoid layoffs” — and as Fierce Pharma flagged, Doustdar seemed to echo that sentiment in a recent earnings call.
“When I think about the future and the huge opportunities that we have, we need to be able to finance that and not fall behind the competition,” Doustdar said on an August 6 earnings call. “We need to reallocate and relook at our cost base and really put the money where the growth is.”
It doesn’t sound like Ozempic and Wegovy are going anywhere, though: Doustdar said during that same earnings call that he wants to “focus more on diabetes and obesity, as this is our main core and has always been.”
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