Novo Nordisk’s Pipeline and China Push Chip Away at a 41% Stock Decline

Despite a 41% share price slump to €38.20, Novo Nordisk's oral Wegovy hits 3M US prescriptions, Zenagamtide shows 14.6% weight loss, and a €29M China investment eyes market entry.

Two narratives are competing for Novo Nordisk’s share price. One points to a stock that is trading at €38.20, a full 41% below its level 12 months ago, with the 52-week high of €65.20 a distant memory. The other highlights a product pipeline that is firing on multiple fronts: an oral version of Wegovy racking up 3 million prescriptions in the US, a dual-acting obesity candidate that has just delivered a 14.6% weight-loss result, and a fresh €29 million production investment in China.

For now, the market is leaning heavily on the first story. But the second is becoming harder to ignore.

China Gets a Twin-Pronged Push

Novo Nordisk’s China strategy gained tangibility on two fronts last week. The company announced a 200 million yuan injection — roughly $29 million — into its Tianjin manufacturing site, earmarked for expanding assembly lines for drugs and injection pens. Since 2003, the Danish pharma group has pumped more than 17 billion yuan into Chinese operations, a cumulative bet that underscores how critical the region has become.

Separately, CEO Mike Doustdar confirmed that an application for the oral version of Wegovy will be filed with Chinese regulators “within months.” The UK’s MHRA has already approved the daily GLP-1 pill — making it the third authority after the US Food and Drug Administration and the United Arab Emirates to give the green light. China would be next.

The timing is sensitive. Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide patent expired in China in March 2026, leaving the company reliant on a regulatory data protection period that runs until early 2027. That window is narrow, and Eli Lilly has already submitted its oral GLP-1 candidate Orforglipron to Chinese authorities. Being second in a market of this size is far from ideal — but being absent would be far worse.

A Pipeline Engine That Keeps Producing

Beyond the near-term China race, the most potent argument for a reassessment of Novo Nordisk’s valuation lies further out in development. At the ADA 2026 congress in New Orleans, the company presented Phase 2 data for Zenagamtide — formerly known as Amycretin — a dual agonist of GLP-1 and amylin receptors. In patients with type 2 diabetes, the highest dose delivered a mean weight loss of 14.6% after 36 weeks and an HbA1c reduction of up to 1.71 percentage points.

Crucially, the weight-loss curve had not yet plateaued at the higher doses, leaving room for further improvement. Novo Nordisk plans to launch a Phase 3 programme for Zenagamtide in type 2 diabetes during the second half of 2026. The REIMAGINE-1-3 studies were simultaneously published in the Lancet and Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology — peer-reviewed validation rather than promotional gloss.

Meanwhile, the oral Wegovy rollout is gaining traction. In the US, the pill has crossed 3 million prescriptions in just over five months. Doustdar noted that 80% of users had not previously been treated with a GLP-1 therapy, suggesting the oral formulation is expanding the market rather than cannibalising the injection.

Risks That Show Up in the Price — and Risks That Don’t

The stock is not without genuine headwinds. A data security incident disclosed in early June exposed patient information from clinical trials, and production constraints for GLP-1 therapies persist. In the REDEFINE-4 study, Novo Nordisk’s CagriSema delivered 23% weight loss after 84 weeks, while Eli Lilly’s Zepbound achieved 25.5% — a gap that continues to shadow the company’s obesity franchise.

Yet much of this appears already baked into the share price. The stock trades about 8% below its 200-day moving average of €41.29 and has slipped 15% since January. The 52-week trough of €30.25, reached in March 2026, currently sits 26% below the current level and has held as a floor. The relative strength index of 53.2 suggests neither overbought nor oversold conditions.

What is not priced in is the potential upside from Zenagamtide’s progression through Phase 3, a Chinese approval for oral Wegovy within the data-protection window, or a broader rollout across additional markets in the second half of 2026. Markets that have recalibrated on disappointment tend to overshoot to the downside. The pipeline data suggest that Novo Nordisk may be a textbook case of that dynamic — where the current share price reflects yesterday’s setbacks more accurately than tomorrow’s opportunities. Patience, not panic, remains the appropriate response.