While everyone debates whether Nvidia is expensive at 30x earnings, one of the most dominant pharmaceutical companies on the planet has quietly lost 70% of its market value in 18 months — and is now trading at just 13 times earnings. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharma giant that essentially created the modern weight-loss drug market with Ozempic and Wegovy, has been left for dead by the market. That might be one of the biggest mistakes investors make this year.
The selloff has been brutal. From its 2024 peak, Novo has cratered on fears of rising competition (Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound), pricing pressure from political scrutiny, and worries that GLP-1 drugs would become commoditized faster than expected. And sure, those risks are real. But at 13x earnings — well below Novo’s historical average — the market is pricing in a catastrophic outcome for a company that still dominates the second-largest position in a market expected to hit $150 billion by 2030.
What the bears are missing is the pipeline. Novo’s next-generation drug CagriSema — which combines GLP-1 with an amylin analog for even greater weight loss — is advancing through trials and could launch as early as late 2027. More importantly, Novo is betting big on oral GLP-1s, which would eliminate the need for weekly injections and massively expand the addressable market. If you think 40 million Americans are going to give themselves a shot every week for the rest of their lives, you haven’t met most Americans. The pill form is where the real market explosion happens.
New leadership is also shaking things up. Novo’s management team is pivoting to strategic pricing moves designed to expand access, not just maximize margins. That’s the right call in a market where the biggest constraint on growth isn’t demand — it’s affordability and availability. The global obesity epidemic isn’t going anywhere, and less than 2% of eligible patients worldwide are currently on GLP-1 therapy. The runway is staggering.
Bottom line: Novo Nordisk still generates exceptional returns on capital, throws off strong free cash flow, and holds a clear number-two position in the most important therapeutic category of the decade. The stock has been punished not for what’s happening, but for what might happen — and that’s exactly when contrarian investors start getting interested. At 13x earnings, you’re not paying for perfection. You’re getting a world-class franchise at a price that assumes everything goes wrong. History says it won’t.