Novo's Slide Deepens Post-CMD: Stock -21.4% in a Month, RSI 21, Trading at 9.4x Earnings

Novo's Slide Deepens Post-CMD: Stock -21.4% in a Month, RSI 21, Trading at 9.4x Earnings

Since the September 21 Capital Markets Day — where 2030 targets "in line with peers" underwhelmed and the stock slumped 8% that day — Novo Nordisk's ADRs have kept falling: $37.32 at the Oct 2 close, down 21.4% in a month and 38.9% from the 52-week high, with RSI at 21 (deeply oversold) and volume drying up (0.7x 20-day average). The market now values all of Novo at $164.79B — about one-sixth of Eli Lilly's $1.02T — at just a 9.4 P/E, with earnings down 20.6% YoY on 2.1% revenue growth. Reuters' framing at EASD: "Its shares have tumbled more than 70% from their peak, as Lilly has overtaken Novo as the obesity-drug market leader.¹"

The proximate driver this cycle is the oral script reversal: the Wegovy pill has been stuck at 181–184K weekly scripts for five weeks (182K latest) while Lilly's Foundayo accelerated 21% to 64,268 and took 26% of the oral market (see Oral GLP-1 Battle Flips: Foundayo Surges 21% to 64K Weekly Scripts While Wegovy Pill Stalls at ~182K). A 247wallst headline captured the CMD aftermath: "Novo Nordisk Falls 7% as Post-Wegovy Growth Plan Fails to Ease" investor concerns. Cost discipline is visibly underway: Novo is cutting 108 jobs at its U.S. headquarters in Plainsboro, NJ effective Dec 31, "part of a broader restructuring aimed at streamlining its US sales organization" — following the 9,000-worker global restructuring announced in September 2025. Manufacturing overhang persists too: on Oct 2 the FDA extended review of Novo's hemophilia drug denecimig "due to ongoing remediation work at a manufacturing facility" — the same class of facility issues that has slowed Novo's U.S. capacity ramp.

Novo's counter-case is real but not yet moving the stock: oral therapies now account for about a third of U.S. obesity prescriptions with Novo claiming >80% of new oral prescriptions; the Wegovy pill has launched in the U.S., UK, Germany, and UAE with India oral launches planned H1 2027; CEO Mike Doustdar told Reuters pills could capture "as much as half of the global obesity-drug market, which analysts estimate could be worth $100 billion annually or more by the end of the decade"; and EASD brought supportive data — Wegovy normalized liver fat in ~90% of adults with obesity and elevated liver fat (STEP UP post hoc), CagriSema food-noise and organ-health data, and the 194-patient real-world switch study showing continued weight loss after moving from injectables to the pill. CagriSema's FDA decision (Q4 2026, standing watch) is the nearest potential re-rating catalyst; Q3 earnings in early November (standing watch) will show whether the pill stall is noise or trend.