BIG PHARMA EARNINGS WATCH: NOVO NORDISK

Brand Name Manufacturer Previews New DTC Ad Campaign to Further Boost Sales of High-Priced Blockbuster GLP-1 Drug Ozempic

This week, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk reported earnings that beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations for the first quarter following price hikes on 12 of their prescription drugs so far this year.

During the Novo Nordisk earnings call, an analyst from Bank of America posed a question about changes to expect on the drug company’s Ozempic marketing strategy, to which Novo Nordisk’s President and Executive Vice President of U.S. operations, Dave Moore, responded the company’s commercial focus for the blockbuster GLP-1 will be to double down on big spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising pushing sales of the high-priced blockbuster, including through a new campaign titled the “Ozempic Era.”

Novo Nordisk spent $208 million on DTC advertising promoting Ozempic in 2023 alone.

Big Pharma’s staggering spending on advertising directly targeting consumers, like Novo Nordisk’s marketing of Ozempic, often walks hand-in-hand with price hikes on these blockbuster products, increases sales of high-priced drugs, and costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.

The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing (CSRxP) released an analysis earlier this year that found taxing or prohibiting DTC ads for the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. would result in increased federal tax revenue between $1.5 and $1.7 billion per year. Read the full analysis HERE.

Get the full rundown of Novo Nordisk’s Q1 earnings here:

Novo Nordisk

• Novo Nordisk beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations for the first quarter.
• The Big Pharma giant company reported $11.9 billion in revenue for Q1.
• The Big Pharma giant’s GLP-1 drug Wegovy brought in $2.6 million in sales during the first quarter.
• The company’s other GLP-1 product, weight loss drug Ozempic, brought in $4.9 million.

This strong earnings report from the Big Pharma giant demonstrates its continued practice of hiking prices across its drug portfolio.  

Novo Nordisk

• Since January 2025, Novo Nordisk has increased the cost of 12 prescription drugs at an average rate of 4.7 percent.
• Last year, Novo Nordisk hiked prices on 10 prescription drugs, including a 3.5 percent increase on their blockbuster weight loss drug Ozempic.
• In 2023, Novo Nordisk hiked prices on 11 prescription drugs, including a 4.9 percent increase on their GLP-1 drug Ozempic.

Read the full CSRxP DTC report HERE.

Read more on Q1 earnings from Johnson & Johnson HERE.

Read more on Q1 earnings from AbbVie, Roche, Gilead, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb HERE.

Read more on Q1 earnings from AstraZeneca and Novartis HERE.

Read more on Q1 earnings from Amgen and Eli Lilly HERE.

Learn more about solutions to lower prescription drug prices and hold Big Pharma accountable HERE.