Novo Nordisk’s quarterly beat and guidance increase did little to resolve Wall Street’s biggest concern: whether the Ozempic maker has a convincing path back to sustainable growth as competition from Eli Lilly intensifies.

Analysts said the better-than-expected quarter benefited from rebate adjustments and other temporary factors, obesity drug sales were broadly in line with expectations, and oral Wegovy slightly missed forecasts. 

At the same time, Novo reported another mixed clinical result for next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema, reinforcing investor questions about the company’s longer-term pipeline.

“Overall nothing to inspire,” Citi analysts wrote, while Jefferies said the guidance increase left little room for consensus sales estimates to move higher.

The Danish drugmaker hiked its full-year guidance and said it now expects adjusted sales and operating profit to be down 6% to flat at constant exchange rates, an improvement from previous guidance of a decline of between 4% and 12% for both metrics.

Novo is racing to restore investor confidence in its pipeline and ability to execute, especially in the challenging U.S. market, amid intense pressure from Eli Lilly’s rival medicines Zepbound and Mounjaro, which have rapidly gained market share despite being launched years after Novo’s.

Coming into Wednesday trading, the company’s Danish shares had fallen about 5% year-to-date and were down nearly 70% from their mid-2024 peak, even if they have recovered some ground this year following the successful launch of the Wegovy pill.

Novo said the improved outlook was driven by increased expectations for GLP-1 product sales.

“The Wegovy product portfolio remains a key growth driver for Novo Nordisk in 2026, led by the continued rapid adoption of Wegovy pill in the US, which has reached more than 5 million prescriptions since its launch, alongside encouraging early uptake in markets outside the US and the rollout of Wegovy [high dose],” said CEO Mike Doustdar in a statement.

Novo’s American depositary receipts fell 6% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the quarterly report was published one day earlier than expected.

Pfizer on Tuesday reported second-quarter results that topped estimates and hiked the low end of its revenue outlook, citing an added $1.5 billion in sales from its non-Covid products.

The company is now expecting full-year revenue to total $60.5 billion to $62.5 billion, which compares to a previous outlook of $59.5 billion to $62.5 billion. That sales range would still be roughly flat or down slightly compared with 2025 revenue of $62.6 billion.

Pfizer said it cut its full-year revenue expectation for its Covid products – the vaccine and antiviral pill Paxlovid – to $4 billion, down from around $5 billion previously. 

The pharmaceutical giant reiterated its full-year adjusted profit outlook of between $2.80 and $3 per share. 

Here’s what the company reported for the second quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: 

• Earnings per share: 77 cents adjusted vs. 68 cents expected
• Revenue: $15.03 billion vs. $14.41 billion expected

Pfizer reported revenue of $15.03 billion for the first quarter, up 3% from the same period a year ago. Sales increases for key products, including its blood thinner Eliquis and targeted cancer drug Padcev, helped to counteract struggles in its Covid business.

Eliquis in particular blew past estimates for the quarter, raking in $2.43 billion in sales, up 19%. Analysts were expecting revenue of $2.08 billion, according to StreetAccount.

The company booked a net loss of $248 million, or 4 cents per share, for the period. That compares with net income of $2.91 billion, or 51 cents per share, during the second quarter of 2025. 

Excluding certain items, including restructuring charges and costs associated with intangible assets, Pfizer posted earnings per share of 77 cents for the quarter.

The company also announced the second phase of a multi-year initiative to slash costs, which targets around $1.5 billion in savings through 2029. That phase focuses on what the company called product portfolio enhancements, network structure changes and additional operational efficiencies. 

 The first part of that effort is on track to deliver $1.5 billion in savings by the end of 2027. 

Pfizer announced an additional $1 billion in savings from a separate cost-cutting program, which will be achieved from 2027 to 2029. That adds to the previously announced $5.7 billion in cost savings the company will achieve through the program by the end of the year. 

The pharmaceutical giant is looking to longer-term investments in its pipeline, including its recent $10 billion acquisition of the obesity biotech Metsera, to counter waning Covid product sales and declines from older drugs. Investors are focused on several crucial data releases from Pfizer this year, including data on a combination regimen that includes its GLP-1 injection and an amylin…

AstraZeneca shares dropped as much as 7% after a report that the U.K.’s largest drugmaker was in talks with U.S. peer Bristol Myers Squibb over a megadeal that, if completed, could value the companies at roughly $400 billion.

AstraZeneca declined to comment. Bristol Myers Squibb didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment outside of normal working hours.

The companies have discussed a potential merger over several months, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. It would be one of the biggest deals ever.

AstraZeneca’s London-listed shares were last seen trading 6.5% lower in early morning trading, weighing on the U.K.’s blue-chip index FTSE 100, which was largely flat.

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Shares of Novo Nordisk fell as much as 10% on Friday after the drugmaker said a late-stage heart drug trial failed to reduce major adverse cardiovascular events, or MACE, compared to a placebo.

While the experimental medicine, ziltivekimab, did show some biological effect, it didn’t translate into a statistically meaningful reduction in MACE, defined as cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke, for patients with certain diseases, Novo said in a statement on Friday.

“While ziltivekimab did not achieve the MACE benefit we had hoped for, this does not change our strategic commitment to cardiovascular disease,” chief scientific officer Martin Holst Lange said.

Copenhagen-listed shares were last seen down 7.4% while its American depositary receipts were 8.6% lower in premarket trading, on track for their worst day since February when the company released disappointing results from a head-to-head trial of its next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema versus Eli Lilly’s rival medicine. If losses hold, shares will turn negative for the year.

The missed endpoint is the latest blow to the Danish drugmaker, which is racing to restore investor confidence in its pipeline and ability to execute, especially in the challenging U.S. market.

The study tested whether ziltivekimab, which blocks the inflammatory IL-6 pathway, could reduce the risk of a first major cardiovascular event compared with placebo when added to standard treatment.

The trial involved more than 6,300 people who had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and elevated inflammation.

Overall adverse-event rates were similar, although serious infections were more common with ziltivekimab. There was no difference in overall mortality.

Friday’s blow came amid cautious investor optimism around Novo, mainly due to its successful launch of the Wegovy pill, the first oral GLP-1 for weight loss, in the U.S. in January.

Eli Lilly launched a rival pill, Foundayo, in April, which has seen slower uptake.

Over the summer, Novo launched the pill in the UAE and the U.K., as it looks to translate the U.S. success globally.

Novo shares are still far off where they were two years ago.

Coming into Friday trading, the company’s Danish shares had fallen 7% year-to-date and were down about 70% from their mid-2024 peak. The company is facing intense pressure from Eli Lilly’s rival medicines, which have rapidly gained market share.

Even with the pill momentum, which both Novo and Lilly say is expanding the GLP-1 market rather than eating into the injectables market, Novo remains under pressure as prices are lower and the pill still only accounts for a fraction of its total sales.

Heightened competition has made Novo’s pipeline increasingly important to investors. The company is counting on products including higher-dose Wegovy, oral versions of its medicines and CagriSema to help strengthen its…

Eli Lilly on Thursday said it will file for approval of its next-generation obesity drug in the first quarter of 2027, as the treatment succeeds in two more late-stage trials. 

The pharmaceutical giant previously said it would submit an application as early as this year for the weekly injection, retatrutide, which works differently and appears to be more effective than existing shots and pills. In a statement to CNBC, Lilly said it needs more time to gather and verify the manufacturing and quality-control data required by regulators before it can seek approval.

In two separate Phase 3 trials, retatrutide delivered significant weight loss and improvements in a key measure of blood sugar levels in adults with obesity and two major complications, Type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease. 

Based on the data, the company believes it has the information necessary to file for approval globally for retatrutide as a potential treatment for obesity, knee osteoarthritis pain and obstructive sleep apnea, Kenneth Custer, president of Lilly Cardiometabolic Health, said in a release. 

In one trial, adults with obesity and diabetes taking the drug lost up to an average of 20.8% of their weight, or nearly 50 pounds, at 80 weeks. That population typically struggles to lose weight. 

In another trial, adults with severe obesity and established cardiovascular disease, with or without diabetes, on the treatment lost up to an average of 22.6% of their weight, or 55.8 pounds, at 80 weeks. Retatrutide meaningfully reduced certain cardiovascular risk factors in patients, Lilly added. 

The side effects associated with the drug were consistent across the two trials as well as previous studies on the treatment. The most common included diarrhea, nausea and constipation, which are also seen across the broader GLP-1 class.

There are now positive results from five late-stage trials on retatrutide, which Lilly is positioning as the next pillar of its obesity portfolio after its injection Zepbound and newly launched pill, Foundayo. In a January note, TD Cowen analysts estimated that retatrutide could rake in sales of $3.8 billion in 2030. 

Retatrutide is also critical to the drugmaker’s plan to maintain its market share majority over Novo Nordisk in the booming market for weight loss and diabetes drugs. Some analysts estimate the segment could be worth about $100 billion by the 2030s. 

Dubbed the “triple G” drug, retatrutide targets GLP-1, GIP and glucagon rather than just one or two of those hormones like existing treatments. That appears to have more potent effects on a person’s appetite and satisfaction with food than other treatments.

Tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, mimics GLP-1 and GIP. Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, mimics only GLP-1.

Novo Nordisk on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, alleging that its advertising campaigns for its blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs are designed to mislead consumers about their superior efficacy relative to the Danish drugmaker’s rival injections. 

Novo is specifically taking issue with nationwide ads that cite what it called “outdated” clinical trials to compare the highest doses of Lilly’s medicines to lower doses of Novo’s drugs. For example, those campaigns don’t include new evidence about Novo’s recently approved high-dose version of its obesity injection, Wegovy, which entered the market in March and brings weight loss that’s more comparable to Lilly’s products.

That “leaves them with the inevitable conclusion that Lilly’s medicines are superior to Novo’s, and that’s not accurate,” said John Kuckelman, Novo’s group general counsel, in an interview Monday. He said the suit comes after Lilly refused to pull down or correct certain ads despite a formal cease-and-desist request from Novo in April. 

In the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Novo asked the court to permanently stop Lilly from running the ads and require the drugmaker to issue corrective advertising. Novo is also seeking financial damages, though it’s unclear how much. The company said it has also warned Lilly that if the ads are not removed voluntarily, it plans to seek a preliminary injunction in the coming days to block them immediately while the case proceeds. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Lilly said it stands “firmly behind our advertising.” The company also said the “gold standard for comparing medicines is a robustly designed, well-conducted head-to-head clinical trial,” such as the one it uses in its ad campaigns to compare its obesity injection, Zepbound, to Wegovy. That remains the only study that directly pits those drugs against each other.

“It is truthful, it is transparent, and it is grounded in the most direct scientific evidence available — exactly what patients deserve,” Lilly said. “We will continue to focus on the science and defend against this lawsuit vigorously.”

The suit comes as Novo wages an aggressive battle against Lilly to regain market share in the GLP-1 space, positioning its new obesity pill, strategic price cuts and the new high-dose Wegovy to compete with its rival’s top-selling obesity injection Zepbound and diabetes counterpart Mounjaro.

In recent years, Lilly’s medications have become the preferred treatments in the space among many providers and patients due to their high efficacy. But high-dose Wegovy, which showed an average weight loss of around 19%, is a direct answer to that. 

Thursday’s announcement that Eli Lilly will acquire AtaiBeckley, a clinical-stage maker of psychedelic drugs, for up to $3.8 billion indicates Big Pharma’s increasing embrace of a long-stigmatized class of medications as alternatives for treating an array of mental health conditions. The news comes on the heels of positive clinical trial results of several different psychedelics, as well as President Trump’s executive order in April fast-tracking reviews of such drugs by the Food and Drug Administration. 

AtaiBeckley’s lead asset, BPL-003, is a synthetic form of 5-MeO-DMT — derived from the venom of Sonoran Desert toads —administered as an intranasal spray for treatment-resistant depression, a severe form of the illness that ​does not improve after standard treatments, which affects around four million Americans. A year ago, Atai reported results of its Phase 2b study of BPL-003, which demonstrated rapid and durable reductions in TRD symptoms. AtaiBeckley is developing several other psychedelics, including one related to MDMA, colloquially known as ecstasy. 

BPL-003 has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA, a program that expedites drug development and review, and is currently in Phase 3 trials. “Phase 3 success by early 2029 could open up a $1-2 billion opportunity in TRD,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a note. More generally, they wrote, “our KOLs [key opinion leaders] confirm psychedelics could represent the biggest change to psychiatry and are possibly a paradigm shift, with patient demand already seeming insatiable.” 

5-MeO-DMT joins several other psychedelic substances — LSD, psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms), MDMA, ayahuasca and ibogaine — that biopharma disrupters have formulated and are successfully testing to treat depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, eating disorders and alcohol and drug addiction. 

Psychedelic drugs appear to temporarily loosen the brain’s rigid patterns of communication, allowing regions that don’t usually “talk” much to connect in new ways. In that more flexible state, especially when paired with therapy, people may be able to revisit trauma, depression or addiction from a different perspective and form healthier mental pathways. Some experts refer to this process as “rewiring” the brain. 

“There’s enough data generated so far that suggests that this class of drugs can deliver something more meaningful than what the orals have been able to do so far,” said Ami Fadia, a biotech analyst at Needham, referring to SSRIs and SNRIs, medications widely prescribed for more than three decades to treat a broad range of psychiatric illnesses. “A few years ago, some investors would not want to touch [psychedelics], but now I rarely hear that,” she said. 

Indeed, it’s been a long, strange trip for psychedelics. Psychiatric scientists began studying them in the 1960s, producing…

Felix is five years old, loves food, and refuses to lose weight.

His owner, Amy in Dallas, has tried cutting back on meals, but with two cats in the house, “he just gobbles down all the food,” she said. The extra pounds worry her because she knows obesity can shorten a cat’s life and strain its joints and heart.

“I’ve actually thought about it,” she said of the potential of weight loss drugs for pets. “If they can make one for my cat, that would be great.”

It may sound far-fetched, but the idea is already moving from wishful thinking toward veterinary research. Two U.S. biotech companies are testing experimental GLP-1 weight-loss treatments for overweight cats, marking one of the earliest attempts to bring the blockbuster drug class into pet medicine.

Meanwhile, some of the world’s largest pet-food makers are investing heavily in nutrition and longevity products aimed at many of the same health problems.

The GLP-1 boom spearheaded by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly has already reshaped how millions of people think about obesity, diabetes, and food. Now, the same class of drugs is spilling over into a new market: household pets.

Akston Biosciences is sponsoring a Cornell University clinical study of a once-weekly GLP-1 therapy for overweight and obese cats, while San Francisco-based OKAVA Pharmaceuticals has begun testing a long-acting implant designed to deliver the medicine continuously for up to six months.

Neither product is approved, and there is currently no commercial “Ozempic for cats.” Both remain early-stage clinical trials that will need to demonstrate they are safe and effective before reaching veterinarians.

The studies point to a broader shift already underway in pet care. As owners spend more on premium food, supplements, diagnostics and veterinary treatments, it’s creating new opportunities for biotech alongside traditional pet-food companies.

According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, 61% of cats and 59% of dogs evaluated by U.S. veterinary professionals in 2022 were classified as overweight or obese, highlighting the scale of a problem long familiar to veterinarians.

Cats present a particularly difficult challenge. Unlike dogs, they cannot simply be taken on longer walks, often resist dietary changes, and can be difficult to medicate consistently, making GLP-1 therapies potentially attractive if clinical trials prove successful.

“Feline obesity is one of the most common yet least effectively treated health issues in veterinary medicine,” Akston CEO Todd Zion said in November as the company announced the clinical trial for GLP-1 for pets.

The Akston-sponsored trial carried out by Cornell University will evaluate about 70 overweight or obese cats over roughly three months. OKAVA’s study is testing an implant inserted by a veterinarian that…