Novo Nordisk shed more than $30 billion of market value on Friday after its experimental heart drug ziltivekimab flopped in a late-stage trial, a setback that strips the Danish company of its most credible path beyond the Ozempic and Wegovy franchise that has carried its shares for years. The stock fell 9.3% to roughly $46.70, its worst single-day drop since February, leaving the shares down 10.6% for the year and the market capitalization at $198.5 billion, a staggering 69% below the $635.7 billion peak reached in June 2024.
The trial that wasn't
The company said only that ziltivekimab “did not achieve” its goal of reducing major adverse cardiovascular events such as heart attack or stroke, and it declined to disclose the magnitude of any risk reduction. That silence is its own data point. Jefferies analysts had framed a 20% risk reduction as the minimum threshold for the drug to matter commercially; the absence of any number suggests the result landed well short. The analysts called the outcome “strategically negative,” estimating it erases a growth opportunity that could have been worth more than $10 billion annually.
The numbers tell the story
The $30.7 billion evaporation, from $229.2 billion to $198.5 billion, is not just a bad day. It is a repricing of the entire narrative. For two years the market paid a premium for the idea that Novo Nordisk could replicate its GLP-1 dominance in cardiovascular disease, building a second pillar to insulate sales that remain heavily reliant on Ozempic and Wegovy. Friday’s move says the market no longer believes that pillar exists.
Analysts split on what it means
Goldman Sachs had praised ziltivekimab’s potential before the readout, arguing it could become the foundation of a cardiovascular franchise and relieve concentration risk. Jefferies now says the opposite: the trial effectively closes that door. The divergence underscores how binary the bet had become. With no efficacy data released, the debate is not about degree of success but about whether the program has any commercial future at all.
What comes next
Novo Nordisk has been pushing pill versions of its GLP-1 drugs, launching a Wegovy tablet in the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, with U.S. and global rollouts planned, but that is an extension of the existing franchise, not a new one. The company also finds itself in a legal spat with Eli Lilly over advertising claims, a sideshow that does nothing to replace the lost cardiovascular optionality. The question now is whether the pipeline holds another asset capable of supporting a $200 billion valuation, or whether the market has simply decided to wait for proof.