Novo Nordisk stock skidded Wednesday after a new study suggests its diabetes and weight-loss drug, semaglutide, can lead to an uncommon disease that causes blindness.
The study of out Mass Eye and Ear, a Boston-based Harvard teaching hospital, showed diabetic patients prescribed semaglutide were four times more likely to be diagnosed with non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION. People with obesity were seven times more likely to develop NAION, which restricts blood flow to the optic nerve and can cause permanent blindness.
Novo sells semaglutide as a diabetes drug called Ozempic and in weight-loss treatment as Wegovy.
"The use of these drugs has exploded throughout industrialized countries and they have provided very significant benefits in many ways, but future discussions between a patient and their physician should include NAION as a potential risk," Joseph Rizzo, the study's corresponding author, said in a news release. Rizzo is a director at Mass Eye and Ear and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
On today's stock market, Novo Nordisk stock fell 2.9% to close at 138.87. Shares of Eli Lilly, which sells diabetes and weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, dipped 1% to close at 898.10.
Representatives of the two companies didn't return requests for comment from Investor's Business Daily.
Novo Nordisk Stock Is Under Pressure
The market for weight-loss drugs has the potential to be huge, and analysts expect Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to be the de facto leaders for years to come. By 2030, the market could be worth a total $100 billion, according to an October estimate from Goldman Sachs.
But Novo Nordisk stock has struggled this week. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders called out Novo and Eli Lilly for the "unconscionably high" prices of their weight-loss drugs. The companies have wholesale acquisition prices of roughly $1,349 and $1,060 a year for their drugs. This is the price before insurance reimbursement kicks in.
A study out of Yale University, though, says the companies could make these drugs for less than $5 a month.
The companies blamed middlemen, like pharmacy benefit managers, for artificially raising the prices of their drugs through fees and discounts. Both said some patients can pay as little as $25 a month for the weekly injections.
The news this week has sent Novo Nordisk stock into a slide. Shares fell as low as 138.60 to their 50-day moving average on Wednesday, but managed to curb some of those losses. Eli Lilly stock, on the other hand, remains well above that mark, according to MarketSurge.
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