Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk A/S, maker of blockbuster weight reduction drug Wegovy, stated Friday its CEO was stepping down by “mutual settlement” with the corporate’s board of administrators, citing “current market challenges” and a steep decline within the firm’s share worth.
Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen’s departure comes every week after the corporate downgraded its gross sales and earnings forecast, and follows a greater than 50% decline within the firm’s shares since mid-2024. Shares had skyrocketed after the introduction of Wegovy and diabetes drugs Ozempic, that are each based mostly on the identical fundamental ingredient, semaglutide.
On the peak, the corporate’s market capitalization – or the mixed worth of all its shares – exceeded Denmark’s annual gross home product and made it Europe’s most beneficial firm, a title it has since misplaced to software program maker SAP.
Novo shares fell about 4% in noon buying and selling Friday. Lilly shares rose 1.4% in premarket buying and selling in New York following the information. Jorgensen will proceed as CEO “for a interval to assist a clean transition to new management,” Novo stated, including {that a} seek for a brand new chief has already begun.
Novo has had solely three CEOs since 1990, and plenty of of its managers — together with Jorgensen — have spent their total careers on the firm. Jorgensen’s predecessor, Lars Rebien Sorensen, who’s now becoming a member of the board in an observer position, had the highest job from 2000 to 2016 whereas Mads Ovlisen was in cost from 1981 to 2000.
Jorgensen has been with Novo since 1991 and was appointed CEO in January 2017. The corporate’s market capitalization has greater than tripled throughout his tenure.
The Novo Nordisk Basis began a dialog with Novo’s board “on the deserves of an accelerated CEO succession,” Novo stated, including that the transfer was a joint resolution.
The group is the wealthiest non-profit basis on the earth, with property of 1.06 trillion kroner ($159 billion), in keeping with the newest annual report. That is about twice the scale of the Gates Basis.
