Slimming pill disappoints and sinks Eli Lilly on Wall Street, Novo Nordisk rebounds

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - The 'challenge' of slimming pills, the new frontier of research against obesity and diabetes, is also making its effects felt on Wall Street where the duel between Novo Nordisk, a pioneer in this pharma sector, and Eli Lilly, which has become its main competitor, has been going on for some time. In fact, today's latest round, during which the data from the trial of Orforglipron, the weight-loss pill that had shown high efficacy in testing, was enough to send Eli Lilly's stock plummeting in the US market. In response, Denmark's Novo Nordisk - whose competitor CagriSema is in the study phase but would be a better performer - rebounded, looking down on it and posting +8%.

The race on the trial front, which as is often the case has different timing from that of investors, is part of an already complex context for the pharmaceutical industry. Far from the glories of the Covid fight, marked first by the inflationary crisis and then by the effects of tariffs (still to be assessed), the sector's quotations are far from a golden moment. Just two years ago, at its peak thanks to slimming drugs - Wegovy and Ozempic - Novo was the most capitalised company in Europe and worth more than the Danish GDP itself and the luxury giant Lvmh, with a capitalisation of over EUR 500 billion. Then competition eroded margins and prices bit by bit, so that now Novo - also due to the recent stormy change at the top - is worth almost 70 per cent less on the stock exchange than the highs of summer 2024.

It doesn't get any better for Eli Lilly, which, with today's thud, is down almost 30% on its share price over the same period, despite having reported second-quarter revenue of $15.56 billion (+38%) and 'reported' earnings per share up 92% to $6.29, with guidance on annual revenue and profit up. But the challenge is almost daily, as evidenced by Novo's cut in its 2025 forecast announced on the eve of the event.