Novo Nordisk falls on loss of two US contracts

4 September 2013

Danish insulin giant Novo Nordisk (NOV: N) saw its shares fall 2.8% to 936 Danish kroner yesterday (September 3), after the company confirmed that it had lost out on two diabetes therapy contracts in the USA.

The two contracts with Express Script, the USA’s largest processor of prescription drug claims, were for type 2 diabetes treatment Victoza (liraglutide), which was won by US firm Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and the other was for NovoLog (insulin aspart), which went to another US drug major, Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY).

Analyst Rune Dahl at DNB Markets, quoted by the Chicago Tribune, estimated that the Express Scripts contract for Victoza accounted for between 15% and 20% of the company's Victoza prescription sales in the USA. Novo Nordisk's sales of Victoza in North America amounted to 3.56 billion kroner ($629.4 million) out of a total of 21.35 billion kroner in the second quarter of this year.

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