Quick overview

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Novo Nordisk A/S lifted its outlook for the second time this year amid high demand for its obesity and diabetes drugs, but the upgrade wasn’t as large as investors had hoped. Novo now sees the biggest decline for sales and profit of 6% in the full year, narrowing from a prior outlook calling for as much as a 12% decline in revenue and operating profit at constant exchange rates.

The company’s Wegovy pill brought in 3.2 billion Danish kroner in sales, meeting analyst estimates. The upgrade “was clearly not heroic,” Jared Holz, Mizuho Securities healthcare strategist, wrote in a note.“The lack of upside for Wegovy pill”  hurt the share, he added. Novo’s shares slump after lawsuit. Novo’s American Depositary Receipts slumped as much as 7.2% to 1:05 pm in New York.

Novo Nordisk filed a false advertising lawsuit against Eli Lilly on July 21, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The legal dispute centers on direct-to-consumer advertising for Lilly’s GLP-1/GIP medications (Zepbound and Mounjaro) relative to Novo’s products (Wegovy and Ozempic).

Novo claims Lilly’s national ad campaigns violate federal (Lanham Act) and state false advertising laws by using outdated dose comparisons:

Zepbound vs. Wegovy: Ads compare maximum doses of Zepbound (10 mg / 15 mg) against lower Wegovy doses (1.7 mg / 2.4 mg), omitting the FDA-approved 7.2 mg Wegovy dose, which showed ~19% average weight loss in trials.

Eli Lilly’s Defense: Lilly stands firmly behind its marketing, stating the ads are truthful, transparent, and accurately cite published head-to-head clinical trial data (e.g., from The New England Journal of Medicine).