On October 23, the 'Star Market Daily' reported (Reporter Zheng Bingxun) that on the evening of the 22nd, the leading peptide active pharmaceutical ingredient company, Novo Nordisk (688076.SH), officially released its third-quarter report for 2024. Benefiting from the significant growth in revenue from active pharmaceutical ingredients such as peptides, Novo Nordisk achieved a revenue of 0.421 billion yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 36.31%, and a net income attributable to the parent company of 0.123 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 146.86%.

Previously, Novo Nordisk had expected the net income attributable to the parent company in Q3 to be 0.1 billion yuan to -0.14 billion yuan, with an expected year-on-year growth of 100.56% to 180.78%. In comparison, the actual year-on-year growth rate of net income in Q3 is slightly higher than the expected middle value. Driven by this, Novo Nordisk achieved a revenue of 1.252 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 76.51%, and a net income attributable to the parent company of 0.35 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 281.90%.

In 2023, with semaglutide and tirzepatide leading the weight loss trend, GLP-1 drugs further became the focus of the market. Combined with the indication for lowering blood sugar, the widespread demand accelerated the market expansion of GLP-1 drugs, driving related peptide active pharmaceutical ingredient enterprises including Novo Nordisk to achieve rapid development.

In 2023, semaglutide weight loss product sales exceeded 4.646 billion US dollars, and the short-acting version of the GLP-1 drug, liraglutide, weight loss version drug sales also reached 1.525 billion US dollars. CM Bank Research Institute pointed out, considering the off-label use of diabetes versions of semaglutide and tirzepatide for weight loss, the global sales of GLP-1 drugs in weight loss exceeded 8 billion US dollars in 2023.

Based on the approval and continuous expansion of production capacity of multiple GLP-1 products for weight loss indications, Goldman Sachs' analysis team has raised the global weight loss drug market size for 2030 from 100 billion US dollars to 130 billion US dollars.

Previously, GLP-1 drugs were already core therapeutic drugs in the type 2 diabetes field. According to Novo Nordisk data, in 2023 in the diabetes field, the sales of GLP-1 drugs were 30.4 billion US dollars, accounting for 47% of the global market for type 2 diabetes.

Nuotech revealed that the company's peptide active pharmaceutical ingredients have been sold to overseas markets such as the USA, Europe, India, and Canada, establishing a production quality management system that meets international market standards and has passed three on-site inspections for cGMP by the US FDA since 2014.

It is understood that Nuotech's Simelgrutide and Lilalutide have both obtained FA Letters in 2023. In February of this year, Nuotech's Teripotide active pharmaceutical ingredient also obtained US FDA DMF, becoming the world's first enterprise to complete FDA DMF filing in terms of time.

Nuotech stated publicly, "The recognition of the FA Letter by overseas customers is very high, and it can play an official certification role and achieve results with half the effort for the company’s business expansion."

However, there is also external attention to the trend of peptide prices and product gross margin. Nuotech revealed in a previous investor briefing, "For large customers with strict quality requirements, supply prices are relatively stable during the research and development stage. As the volume increases in the commercialization stage, the prices will decrease."

Nuotech also stated that it can reduce production costs through various cost-saving measures, achieve economies of scale, as well as increase gross profit.

Looking at Nuotech's achievement of 0.356 billion yuan in revenue and a net income attributable to shareholders of 66.3268 million yuan in Q1 this year, as well as revenue of 0.831 billion yuan and a net income attributable to shareholders of 0.227 billion yuan in the first half of the year, the revenue and net income growth rates in Q2 were 33.69% and 142.49% respectively on a quarterly basis, while in Q3, they decreased by 11.55% and 23.47% respectively.