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ALETH / LIFESCI-BRIEF / 2025-08-01 / NOVO NORDISK LOSES ITS OBESITY LEAD

Aleth LifeSci Brief: 28 July - 1 August 2025

Novo Nordisk loses its obesity lead

In this edition

Monday 28 July

The United States and the European Union agreed a 15% tariff on EU goods, pharmaceuticals included, under a trade framework announced at Turnberry.

President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set the framework on 27 July, and the White House published the terms the next day. The 15% rate covers autos, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, with the US saying the combined most-favoured-nation and Section 232 tariff on EU-origin medicines will not exceed that level; from 1 September the US will charge only the MFN rate on certain generics and their ingredients. Pharmaceuticals are the EU’s largest goods export to the US, so the number sets the cost base for the transatlantic sector, UK-headquartered manufacturers with EU production included. The framework also carries EU commitments to invest $600 billion in the US and buy $750 billion of US energy through 2028.

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Bavarian Nordic agreed a takeover by a Nordic Capital and Permira consortium that values the vaccine maker at about $2.98 billion.

On 28 July the Danish company said Innosera, a new vehicle controlled by Nordic Capital Fund XI and funds advised by Permira, would make an all-cash recommended offer of 233 Danish crowns per share, roughly 19 billion crowns in equity. The price is a 21% premium to the 23 July close on Nasdaq Copenhagen, and the board intends to recommend it, with completion expected in the fourth quarter. The offer follows the company’s confirmation of talks four days earlier and takes one of Europe’s few listed vaccine specialists, maker of the mpox and smallpox vaccine Jynneos, into private hands.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to dismiss all 16 members of the US Preventive Services Task Force, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper said the health secretary views the panel as too “woke.” The task force decides which cancer screenings and other preventive services private insurers must cover at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. An HHS spokesperson said no final decision had been made. The reported move would follow his June removal of the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee, extending his remake of federal health advisory bodies from vaccines into preventive care.

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GSK agreed to pay Jiangsu Hengrui $500 million upfront for global rights to a portfolio of up to 12 medicines.

The agreements, announced on 28 July, span respiratory, immunology and inflammation, and oncology, with milestone payments that could reach about $12 billion if every programme is optioned and hits its targets. The lead asset is HRS-9821, a PDE3/4 inhibitor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, licensed to GSK worldwide except greater China. Hengrui will run the other 11 preclinical programmes through the end of Phase I, each carrying a GSK option to take them global. It is the latest in a run of Western licensing deals for Chinese-originated medicines.

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Tuesday 29 July

Analysts put the cost of the new 15% tariff to the pharmaceutical industry at $13 billion to $19 billion a year.

Reuters gathered the estimates the day after the US-EU deal, covering branded medicines shipped from Europe into the US, with some generics exempt. ING’s Diederik Stadig gave the lower figure of about $13 billion without mitigation; Bernstein’s Courtney Breen gave the upper figure of $19 billion. Medicines had been exempt from duties, and the EU supplies roughly 60% of US pharmaceutical imports, so the charge falls on the largest European exporters, several of them UK-listed or with UK manufacturing.

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AstraZeneca reported second-quarter revenue up 12% to $14.46 billion, ahead of estimates, led by its cancer drugs.

In half-year results on 29 July, the company said oncology sales rose 18% to about $6.3 billion in the quarter, carrying the beat against consensus of roughly $14.2 billion. First-half revenue reached $28.0 billion, up 9%, with the pipeline delivering 12 positive Phase III readouts, and the company reaffirmed full-year guidance. It is AstraZeneca’s strongest quarterly print of the year, as it weighs the balance of its US and UK listings.

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A federal judge blocked Arkansas’s first-in-the-nation law barring the largest pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies in the state.

Act 624, signed in April, would stop CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth, whose Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx units run the three biggest PBMs, from holding a pharmacy permit in Arkansas from January 2026. On 28 July US District Judge Brian Miller granted a preliminary injunction, finding the law likely breached the Commerce Clause and was likely preempted by the TRICARE military health programme. The three companies together process about 80% of US prescriptions, and other states are watching whether the model spreads.

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Wednesday 30 July

Novo Nordisk shares fell more than 23% after it cut its 2025 sales and profit forecasts, wiping over 60 billion euros off its value.

On 29 July the company lowered expected sales growth to 8 to 14% and operating profit growth to 10 to 16% at constant exchange rates, down from 13 to 21% and 16 to 24% set in May. It blamed continued unlawful mass compounding of copycat GLP-1 drugs in the US, which it said persisted after the FDA grace period expired on 22 May, along with slower market growth and competition hitting Wegovy in obesity and Ozempic in diabetes. The same announcement named Maziar Mike Doustdar incoming chief executive from 7 August.

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Merck launched a cost-cutting programme targeting $3 billion in annual savings by 2027 as second-quarter sales fell 2%.

The US drugmaker said on 29 July the plan would cut administrative, sales and research jobs, shrink its property footprint and reshape manufacturing, at a pretax cost of about $3 billion. Quarterly revenue was $15.8 billion, dragged down by Gardasil, its second-best seller, where sales dropped 55% to $1.1 billion on weak demand in China; the company will not resume shipments there through at least the end of the year. Keytruda, its top product, grew 9% to $8.0 billion.

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Vinay Prasad left as head of the FDA’s biologics centre less than three months into the job.

An HHS spokesperson confirmed the departure to Endpoints News, saying Prasad “did not want to be a distraction.” His exit followed the agency’s reversal on halting Sarepta’s Elevidys gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and criticism of his vaccine rulings. He had run the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since May.

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The Trump administration ordered the NIH to stop issuing new research grants and contracts, then reversed within hours.

STAT obtained a short email the White House Office of Management and Budget sent NIH institute directors on 29 July, telling them to “immediately halt the issuing of research grants, research and development contracts, and training awards.” The freeze, imposed through a footnote to the agency’s funding apportionment, would have held back roughly $15 billion still to be disbursed before the fiscal year ends. After protests from members of Congress and patient groups, the administration reinstated the funding the same evening, later calling it a programmatic review.

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Pascal Soriot backed President Trump’s call for Europe to pay more for medicines as AstraZeneca beat forecasts.

Speaking around the company’s half-year results on 29 July, the chief executive said he supported rebalancing prices, with some reduction in the US and a modest rise in Europe, arguing the US “can no longer pay for the R&D of the world.” The comments followed AstraZeneca’s 21 July pledge to invest $50 billion in US manufacturing and research by 2030. Its cancer portfolio drove the quarter’s beat.

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Thursday 31 July

AbbVie is in talks to buy Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals for about $1 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said on 30 July the two were negotiating, though a deal was not final. Gilgamesh develops neuroplastogens, next-generation psychedelic compounds aimed at depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders, and already has a 2024 partnership with AbbVie. A purchase would add to the neuropsychiatry pipeline AbbVie has built since its Cerevel acquisition.

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Madrigal licensed a preclinical oral GLP-1 drug from China’s CSPC in a deal worth up to $2.12 billion.

Announced on 30 July, the exclusive global agreement covers SYH2086, an orforglipron derivative, for $120 million upfront and up to $2 billion in milestones plus royalties, with CSPC keeping certain oral GLP-1 rights in China. Madrigal intends to combine the drug with Rezdiffra, its approved treatment for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, in a once-daily oral pairing, and plans to start clinical work in the first half of 2026. It is another large Western licence for a Chinese-discovered obesity asset, this one before the molecule has reached the clinic.

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The chief executive of NICE, Sam Roberts, will step down at the end of 2025.

NICE, which appraises medicines to decide what the NHS in England funds, said on 30 July that Roberts was leaving after about four years to support her children through a difficult time, and would begin recruiting a successor at once. Her tenure was credited with speeding drug assessments by around a quarter and adding evaluation frameworks for severe diseases and health inequalities. The departure comes as NICE overhauls its severity modifier and pricing tension with the industry remains unresolved.

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Friday 1 August

Trump told drugmakers to cut US prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries by the end of September.

In letters to leading manufacturers on 31 July, the White House asked companies to extend most-favoured-nation prices to Medicaid patients, stop giving other developed nations better prices on new drugs, sell directly to patients at those prices, and reinvest overseas revenue into lower US prices. It seeks voluntary action, warning it will otherwise “deploy every tool in our arsenal.” Reporting on the letters said they went to 17 companies with a 60-day deadline.

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The US set a 39% tariff on imports from Switzerland, one of the highest rates in the latest round.

The rate appears in Annex I of an executive order Trump signed on 31 July revising his country-by-country reciprocal tariffs, with the new schedule taking effect about a week later. Switzerland is home to Roche and Novartis and a large share of pharmaceutical export capacity that ships into the US. The order carries the earlier tariff exceptions by reference and does not itself name medicines, which are being handled under a separate Section 232 process.

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Frazier Life Sciences closed a $1.3 billion fund to create and back early-stage biotechs.

Announced on 31 July, the oversubscribed fund is the firm’s largest and will focus on company creation and early-stage private biopharma. Frazier has raised over $3.6 billion across five venture funds since 2016 and started 25 companies since 2020. The close came as broader biotech venture funding slowed, with second-quarter industry funding down to about $4.8 billion from around $7 billion.

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