Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk is saying goodbye to its chief executive amid growing competition for its blockbuster weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic.
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, who led the company for eight years, will step down due to “market challenges” and a drop in the company’s share price over the past year, Novo Nordisk said on Friday.
In March, the company’s stocks tumbled by 27 per cent, marking its worst monthly performance in more than two decades. Last week, the firm cut its 2025 forecast for both sales growth and operating profit growth.
At constant exchange rates, sales growth is expected to be 13 per cent to 21 per cent this year, compared to previous guidance of 16 per cent to 24 per cent. The firm forecast its operating profit growth at 16 per cent to 24 per cent, lower than a previous range of 19 per cent to 27 per cent.
American rival Eli Lilly has posed some of Novo Nordisk’s stiffest competition. In April, it announced promising early results for a once-daily weight loss pill that could become an alternative to jabs like Wegovy and Ozempic.
The financial pressures prompted the leadership of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, a charitable group that controls the drugmaker, to push Jørgensen toward the exit.
“Considering the recent market challenges, the share price decline, and the wish from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Board and Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen have jointly concluded that initiating a CEO succession is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders,” the company said.
Jørgensen will remain CEO while the company looks for his successor in order to “support a smooth transition to new leadership,” according to Novo Nordisk, one of the European Union’s largest companies.
He first joined the firm in 1991, rising to chief executive in 2017.
Novo Nordisk’s share price dropped more than 5 per cent in US pre-market trading as of around 2pm CEST.
