Novo Nordisk’s 15 Billion Kroner Buyback Sends a Message, but the Market Isn’t Listening

The Danish drugmaker is buying back its own stock at a furious pace just as the shares slide toward a two-year low. Novo Nordisk’s board authorized a DKK 15 billion repurchase program, and by early June 2026 the company had already spent close to DKK 5 billion scooping up shares at an average price of 264 kroner apiece. The move is a deliberate signal: management believes the sell-off has overshot the company’s long-term worth. So far, however, the market is not buying it.

Competitive pressure from Eli Lilly and an aggressive US drug-benefit manager have hammered the stock. The American Diabetes Association conference earlier this year showcased Lilly’s rapid GLP-1 market share gains, and soon after a major pharmacy benefit manager shifted its formulary preference to a rival product. The blowback forced Novo Nordisk to warn that 2026 revenue could shrink by as much as 13% — a far steeper drop than analysts had anticipated. Starting in January 2027, the company will cut US list prices on several key semaglutide brands, underscoring the pricing headwinds that now define the obesity drug market.

The chart tells a grim technical story. Trading at around EUR 35.70, the stock has lost nearly 20% since the start of the year and has roughly halved from the all-time high set twelve months ago. The 50-day moving average has crossed below the 200-day average, a classic “death cross” that confirms the long-term downtrend. With an RSI of 40, selling pressure remains elevated without entering oversold territory. The next major support sits at EUR 30.25, the 2026 low — a level just 18% below the current price. A break below that would open the door to a multi-year decline with no obvious technical floor. The company’s market capitalization has contracted to around EUR 168 billion.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Novo Nordisk?

Yet beneath the market gloom, the business is delivering real operational momentum. The oral Wegovy pill launched in the US in January 2026 and generated more than 200,000 weekly prescriptions within months. By the end of the first quarter, cumulative prescriptions had topped 1.3 million, and the total has since exceeded two million — the strongest GLP-1 volume launch in American history. The European Medicines Agency’s CHMP has recommended the pill for obesity, citing positive cardiovascular data from the SELECT trial. Crucially, the oral formulation is the only GLP-1 therapy with no restrictions on combining it with other medications. A higher-dose injectable, Wegovy HD, won FDA approval in March and reached the US market in April, delivering an average 20.7% weight loss in the STEP-UP study.

Management is using the buyback to buy time for the pipeline. At the ADA congress in New Orleans in June 2026, Novo Nordisk presented 40 studies, including pivotal phase 3 results for the combination drug CagriSema and fresh data on the injectable candidate Zenagamtide. The company is fielding a multi-pronged response to the obesity race, with oral pills, higher-dose injectables, and novel combinations. According to IQVIA, more than 193 active compounds are now in development for weight loss, underscoring how crowded the field has become.

The repurchase program, which is expected to run until early June 2026, has not arrested the stock’s descent. That leaves the second half of the year as the defining test. The international rollout of the Wegovy pill and a potential approval for CagriSema must deliver the commercial proof that the buyback — and the confidence behind it — was justified. If the pipeline delivers as management expects, the bet on cheap equity may look prescient. If not, the millions of kroner spent on own shares will be remembered as an expensive act of defiance.