Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk named Maziar Mike Doustdar as its new chief executive on Tuesday, relying on an experienced company insider to revive sales and a share price hit by concerns that the Wegovy maker is falling behind in the weight-loss drug race it initiated.
The appointment comes after the abrupt removal in May of CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen by Novo and the Novo Nordisk Foundation – the Danish company's controlling shareholder – and follows a growth warning earlier on Tuesday.
Doustdar, who joined Novo in 1992, currently serves as vice president for international operations, a role he assumed after leading the company's businesses first in the Middle East and then in Southeast Asia, Novo said.
The new chief executive's most urgent challenge, according to investors and analysts, is to revive Novo's performance in the U.S., the largest market by far for weight-loss drugs and where they are most profitable.
Novo launched its weight-loss drug Wegovy nearly two and a half years before U.S. rival Eli Lilly's Zepbound. But Zepbound prescriptions surpassed those of Wegovy this year by more than 100,000 a week.
The appointment comes at a challenging time for the global pharmaceutical industry as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to impose tariffs on imports and calls on drugmakers to lower their U.S. prescription prices.
Jorgensen led Novo through a period of meteoric growth as it led the weight-loss drug boom, becoming Europe's most valuable listed company following the launch of Wegovy in 2021. At its peak in June 2024, Novo was worth as much as $615 billion.
But Novo shares have plunged since then due to investors' concerns about the company's experimental drug pipeline and its ability to navigate challenges in the U.S. market, such as the threat to its sales from compounded copies of Wegovy and Lilly's Zepbound.
On Tuesday, the company also reduced its full-year sales and operating profit forecasts for the second time this year, causing its shares to decline as much as 17%.
"The lowered sales outlook for 2025 is driven by lower growth expectations for the second half of 2025," it said in a statement.
"This is related to lower growth expectations for Wegovy in the U.S. obesity market, lower growth expectations for Ozempic in the U.S. GLP-1 diabetes market, as well as lower-than-expected penetration for Wegovy in select IO (International Operations) markets," it said.
Novo now expects 2025 sales growth of 8%-14% in local currencies, down from its previous forecast range of 13%-21 %. It also lowered its operating profit growth estimate to 10%-16%, from 16%-24% previously.
