Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has announced its Q1 earnings, reporting $7.61bn and surpassing Wall Street expectations.
The drugmaker also posted revenue of $15.17bn in the same period, also beating forecasts.
The stronger-than-expected performance, driven by robust GLP-1 product sales, has led the company to raise its sales and operating profit forecasts for 2026.
The Wegovy pill, launched in January, performed better than expected in the first three months of the year, propelling prescriptions and sales well ahead of analysts' forecasts.
Novo now says it expects adjusted sales and profit to contract by four to twelve per cent on a currency-adjusted basis — an improvement on the previously projected decline of five per cent to thirteen per cent.
"The strong Wegovy performance, combined with continued growth in International Operations, has led us to raise our 2026 guidance for both adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit," Chief Executive Mike Doustdar said in a statement.
The pharma giant added that first-quarter sales jumped 32% on a constant-currency basis to 96.8 billion Danish kroner ($15.2bn), while operating profit surged 65% to 59.6 billion kroner on a reported basis.
On an adjusted basis, however, sales fell four per cent while profits fell six per cent.
Doustdar said Wegovy was "driving a strong start to 2026," adding that the pill's rapid adoption reflected growing demand for more convenient weight-loss treatments.
The Wegovy brand now has 65% of all new prescriptions in the US, according to CNBC, with the pill seeing around 1.3 million prescriptions in the first three months of the year.
Novo also announced during the earnings call that it aims to launch the Wegovy pill outside the US in the second half of 2026, with sales of the pill growing by double digits despite competition from rival Eli Lilly's obesity pill Foundayo, launched in the US in April.
The pair are now locked in an intense battle for dominance in the weight-loss market.
A concern for investors has been the extent to which the introduction of oral alternatives could hamper sales of the older, injectable products, but Doudstar maintained that people were using both.
It’s having, not a cannibalisation, but a synergetic effect.