Novo Nordisk (NVO) earnings Q4, full-year FY24

Danish pharmaceutical behemoth Novo Nordisk on Wednesday reported better-than-expected net profit in the fourth quarter, amid soaring demand for its Wegovy obesity drugs.

Net profit for the fourth quarter came in at 28.23 billion Danish kroner ($3.98 billion), versus the 26.09 billion Danish kroner anticipated.

Full-year net profit reached 100.99 billion Danish kroner, also beating estimates of 99.14 billion Danish kroner for 2024.

The drug maker posted a 107% year-on-year increase in Wegovy sales to 19.87 billion Danish kroner ($2.76 billion) in the three months to the end of December, slightly missing the 20.02 billion Danish kroner forecast by analysts in a Factset poll late Tuesday.

Novo Nordisk has ridden a wave of rising global demand for GLP-1 agonist obesity treatments. GLP-1s, which form the basis of Novo’s Wegovy and rival Eli Lilly‘s Zepbound, work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, which suppresses appetite.

Investors are now watching for updates on the company’s other obesity drug candidates, including its hotly anticipated experimental CagriSema treatment. Late-stage CagriSema trial results disappointed markets in December after demonstrating average weight reduction of 22.7%, below the 25% Novo had previously forecast.

The trial results dealt a blow to expectations that CagriSema would emerge as Novo’s next-generation obesity drug, combining semaglutide — the active ingredient in Wegovy — with amylin analog Cagrilintide, a nascent form of weight loss treatment.

However, positive early-stage results for its once weekly Amycretin obesity drug, which similarly employs the amylin pancreas hormone, led the stock higher last month.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated shortly.