Winning new customers is particularly important to Novo.Jo Walton, an analyst at UBS, said Eli Lilly had “rocket ship growth” in new prescriptions, citing figures for the week ending March 21, showing that Lilly accounted for 70 per cent of new patients on an obesity drug starting dose, versus 30 per cent for Novo Nordisk.UBS had previously expected higher growth for Novo.“Our view was that they would end up eventually more or less 50/50 [with Lilly], that their semaglutide is a good base product, and that once they were back in full supply, you would see strong prescription growth. And let’s be fair, we haven’t seen it yet,” Walton said. Intron Health has downgraded Novo Nordisk to a “sell”, saying it is now likely that Novo Nordisk will have to warn that it will miss its revenue guidance this year.Sachin Jain, an analyst at Bank of America, expects Novo to lower its sales guidance from 16 to 24 per cent growth at constant exchange rates to 14 to 22 per cent. He wrote that there was a lack of clarity about what patients would do when compounding stops. “We assume many simply drop given the lack of coverage, and Novo Nordisk and Lilly take equal share of the remainder.”
