Novo-Nordisk A/S 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Please go ahead. Thank you very much, operator.

Welcome to this Novo Nordisk earnings call for the second quarter of 2026. My name is Michael Novod. I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Novo Nordisk. With me today, I have CEO of Novo Nordisk, Mike Doustdar, EVP U.S. Operations, Jamey Millar, EVP International Operations, Emil Kongshøj Larsen, EVP Research and Development, and Chief Scientific Officer, Martin Holst Lange, and Chief Financial Officer, Karsten Munk Knudsen. All speakers will be available for the Q&A session. Today's call is being webcasted live. A recording will be made available on our website. The call is scheduled to last one hour. Next slide, please. The presentation is structured as outlined on slide two. Please note that all sales and operating profit growth statements will be at CER unless otherwise specified. Next slide, please. As usual, we need to advise you that this call will contain forward-looking statements.

These are subject to risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For further information on the risk factors, please see the company announcement for the second quarter of 2026 and the slides prepared for this presentation. With that, over to you, Mike, for an update on our strategic milestones for the second quarter of 2026.

Thanks, Michael. Next slide, please. In the second quarter of this year, we have continued to deliver on our priorities to improve commercial competitiveness, progress our pipeline, and make focused investments while delivering returns. Today, Novo Nordisk is serving more than 46 million people living with obesity and diabetes. We are treating almost 70% more people living with obesity compared to just a year ago, with nearly five million people on our obesity treatments. We've taken the successful U.S. launch of Wegovy pill to global markets. We now have around 1.5 million people on the Wegovy pill worldwide. This is a testament to our increased efforts in manufacturing and across the entire value chain to bring innovation to people. Within research and development, we continue to advance our pipeline across therapy areas.

We have received more than 10 regulatory approvals and started more than 5 clinical trials in the second quarter. We have also announced top-line results from ZEUS, the first three trials with ziltivekimab in patients with ASCVD, chronic kidney disease, and inflammation. While the outcome was not what we had hoped for, this single event does not change our strategy. Novo Nordisk remains committed to helping patients with comorbidities related to obesity and diabetes, including cardiovascular disease. Martin will speak to this later. In the second quarter of 2026, we continued to invest in growth opportunities to drive competitiveness and progress our pipeline. This includes more than DKK 26 billion invested into R&D and commercial activities. Lastly, we are happy to see that we have been able to raise our 2026 guidance once again. Karsten will elaborate on this later on during the call. Next slide, please. In the second quarter of 2026, adjusted sales grew 7%, driven by volume growth, partially offset by lower realized prices.

U.S. operations grew 4%, reflecting volume growth primarily driven by GLP-1 in obesity. International Operations grew 10%, mainly driven by region EUCAN. From a therapy point of view, obesity care sales increased by 16%, driven by volume growth across the Wegovy product portfolio in both U.S. and IO, partially offset by lower realized prices. Our GLP-1 sales in diabetes increased by 2%, driven by U.S. operations. GLP-1 diabetes sales in U.S. benefited from a gross to net rebate adjustments related to prior periods. With that, over to you, Jamey.

Thank you, Mike. Next slide, please. We continue to see encouraging use of the Wegovy pill six months into the U.S. launch. The Wegovy pill is the strongest-ever GLP-1 launch by volume, and we have now reached over 5 million total prescriptions. It took 12 weeks to reach the first 1 million TRx. Yet the latest 1 million TRx were added in just four weeks. Weekly prescriptions as of July 17th were 267,000. The Wegovy pill uptake is driven by its efficacy, favorable tolerability profile, and ease of use.

Based on the latest data, in the face of competition launched in early April, the Wegovy pill has captured around 90% of the oral obesity medication market. Furthermore, a recently published study showed that weight loss in the real world exceeded that seen in the OASIS four clinical trial at the same point in time, reinforcing the efficacy of the pill and patient usage in practice. The Wegovy pill is expanding the market as we continue to see roughly 80% of patients being GLP-1 treatment naive. We also find people coming to Wegovy pill from competitor products and limited cannibalization on injectable Wegovy, which is encouraging. On usage, we are seeing continued progress in titration dynamics, with higher dose prescriptions increasing steadily week over week.

This suggests people are progressing through titration and continuing treatment, which is also supported by more than 20,000 people currently utilizing the Wegovy pill subscription model for the two higher doses. Overall, trends remain in line with our expectations. From an access perspective, quality of access for obesity GLP-1s remains poor and is a key focus area. While we see uptake for the pill in the reimbursed commercial channel, the majority of total prescriptions are self-pay. We're excited about the expansion of access for obesity medication in the 65 plus age population, with the recently available Bridge program in Medicare Part D. While it is early days, we are encouraged by the strong participation in the program. Wegovy pill appears to be the oral option of choice, we will continue to focus on educating and differentiating Wegovy injectable to capture higher market share.

The branded obesity medication market continues to expand in Q2 2026, growing volumes at around 70% compared to Q2 2025. The Wegovy franchise is playing a major role in this expansion, where the franchise continues to be the leader measured on NBRX with a market share of around 60% during the month of July. With that, I will turn it over to Emil.

Thank you, Jamey. Please turn to the next slide. In the second quarter of 2026, GLP-1 sales in International Operations grew by 13%, driven by volume growth and market expansion, with the highlight being obesity franchise growth of 37%. Novo Nordisk continues to be volume market leader outside the U.S. with around 58% GLP-1 volume market share. While our market share has been declining over recent quarters, we see encouraging trends as our share of growth continues to stabilize. This indicates that we are gradually seeing the benefits of our efforts, including the step-up approval and launches of Wegovy® 7.2 milligram and Ozempic® 2.0 milligram. In the U.K., Wegovy® 7.2 milligram in a single-dose pen is now broadly available. Since the introduction of the step-up data earlier this year, we have seen a market share increase in the GLP-1 market.

In the EU, Wegovy® 7.2 milligram in the single-dose pen was recently approved, we look forward to launching the pen in the first EU markets during Q3. Ozempic® continues to see solid sales momentum, with sales growth of 10% in the second quarter. This is partially driven by Ozempic® 2.0 milligram, which is now launched in around 10 countries with good uptake, coupled with strong overall Ozempic® performance across key European markets. Recently, we saw the first generic entries in the early LOE markets. While modest so far, the LOE impact is expected to be back-end loaded in the second half of 2026. Although it is early days, we generally see the market expanding in the early LOE countries, mainly driven by more products being available at lower prices and significant promotional investments by new entrants.

While the generic players have started to capture market share, we have so far been able to grow our absolute volumes. In Canada, our leading tactic is the savings card program, and we've seen good volume retention for both Ozempic and Wegovy in the cash and private insurance channels. Next slide, please. Recently, we launched Wegovy pill in the first IO countries, the U.K. and U.A.E. This marks an important milestone as we are now able to offer people a weight loss efficacy on par with that of injectable Wegovy in a once-daily, easily administered pill in these countries. In the U.K., the Wegovy pill was made broadly available in early July, becoming the first once-daily oral GLP-1 treatment for weight management. It is estimated that around 20 million adults live with obesity in the U.K.