Novo Nordisk CEO on weight-loss drugs' 'exciting growth story'

Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk (NVO) topped first-quarter profit expectations, bringing in $9.5 billion in revenue over Wall Street estimates of $9.2 billion. However, the company fell short of sales estimates for its popular GLP-1 weight-loss drug, Wegovy. Novo Nordisk also manufactures the landmark weight-loss drug Ozempic.

Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen tells Yahoo Finance Senior Health Reporter Anjalee Khemlani that despite missing the mark on sales estimates, Wegovy has an "exciting growth story." The number of prescriptions has continued to rise across the United States, and more patients are seeing increased coverage as new health benefits and treatment use cases, like the decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, are uncovered.

"We see a slight erosion in pricing that's not much different compared to what we have seen on other medicines. It's really about the significant volume opportunity that we are ramping manufacturing, we are getting more scripts, and we are helping many more patients deal with obesity," Jørgensen says on the pricing for these drugs.

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl