Novo Nordisk $NVO ( ▼ 5.59% ) is getting knocked around this morning after the company revealed that oral semaglutide, the key ingredient behind Ozempic and Wegovy, failed to slow early-stage Alzheimer’s in two major trials. Shares slid nearly 8 percent in Europe, and the US ADRs followed with a similar slide.
The data landed with a thud. Across two large late-stage studies involving 3,808 adults, oral semaglutide didn’t beat a placebo in slowing disease progression. Researchers did see some movement in Alzheimer’s-related biomarkers, but the improvements didn’t add up to an actual delay in symptoms.
Novo’s Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange tried to soften the blow, noting that expectations for success were low from the start, and that semaglutide still has a massive body of evidence behind it for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic conditions.
The miss comes at a delicate moment for Novo. The company is losing ground in the GLP-1 race to Eli Lilly $LLY ( ▲ 0.99% ) , whose Mounjaro and Zepbound have surged to the top of the weight-loss and diabetes market. Lilly also has Kisunla, its own early-stage Alzheimer’s injection, which won approval last year and is expected to pull in more than 224 million dollars in revenue this year.
For Novo, adding Alzheimer’s to semaglutide’s résumé would have been a major win. Instead, investors are waking up to a reminder that even the hottest drugs in the world have limits.