Novo Nordisk Rebrands as Novo While Fighting for Obesity Market Share

Novo Nordisk held 38.8 percent of the obesity market in the second quarter. Eli Lilly held 60.9 percent, according to a Lilly earnings presentation citing IQVIA data. The Danish drugmaker’s shares had dropped about 15 percent this year as of the Monday it announced it would use Novo as its day-to-day name.

As chief executive, Doustdar was pressing the company to become leaner and more competitive while it worked to strengthen its standing in the obesity-drug market it had pioneered. The legal name Novo Nordisk A/S would remain unchanged. The brand is “strategically important,” Doustdar said.

The Monday press release that carried the shorter name also began to show the updated identity meant to travel with it. It set out the tagline Lasting Health Starts Now, meant to place lasting health in the present rather than sometime later, and an updated visual identity intended to strengthen global recognition and connect more closely with patients, consumers, partners and other stakeholders. The Apis bull stayed in the logo, tweaked to face right and given a more contemporary look. The same announcement introduced a corporate culture dubbed The Novo Way, built around four Cs: customer obsession, competitiveness, clarity, and care and integrity. Those principles were meant to bring greater focus, speed and impact, through clearer priorities and simpler workflows, in a market that had grown more competitive and more direct-to-consumer.

“Healthcare must become more responsive, relevant, and easier to fit into everyday life. Our brand and culture are strategically important and will enhance how we operate and compete, but the reason we exist will not change,” Doustdar said. “We remain true to our purpose of changing people’s lives and are ambitious about our future to help them have lasting health, starting right now.”

Novo Nordisk manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products, primarily for diabetes and obesity, and sells them in 168 countries. Headquartered in Bagsværd, it is Denmark’s largest pharmaceutical firm. The corporation was formed in 1989 when two Danish companies merged. Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium had been founded in 1923 to bring insulin production to Denmark after the hormone’s discovery; August Krogh secured permission to produce it there. Former employees of Nordisk started Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium two years later. The rivals competed until the 1989 combination created Novo Nordisk A/S. Shortening the everyday brand to Novo cut “Nordisk” from ordinary speech while the legal title held.

The shorter brand and the bull that now looked right went out as the company sought to win back obesity market share. Eli Lilly had already moved toward a single-name identity, dropping “Eli” from its marketing. Competition from Lilly had slowed growth in Novo’s core semaglutide-based therapies. Semaglutide, the active molecule in Wegovy and Ozempic, is a GLP-1 receptor agonist—a drug that mimics a natural gut hormone to help control blood sugar and reduce appetite. It can be injected under the skin or taken by mouth. Wegovy is the version used for weight management; Ozempic treats type 2 diabetes. Lilly’s competing products had claimed the larger portion of that market.

Oral Wegovy still offered a concrete counterweight. The pill had surpassed 3 million prescriptions as of June and held a head start over Lilly’s rival oral weight-loss candidate, Foundayo.

The pressure had already shown up in the pipeline. Novo recently scrapped trials of ziltivekimab, an experimental cardiovascular drug tested in heart failure and atherosclerosis. The intended follow-up to Wegovy and Ozempic, a combination called CagriSema that pairs cagrilintide with semaglutide, had produced disappointing clinical results.

Those setbacks arrived as the core molecule itself moved toward the end of exclusivity. Semaglutide is already off-patent in India. It is expected to lose exclusivity in China soon, and in Europe and the United States in the early 2030s. The losses left less room to absorb further misses. Analysts watching the rebrand began to press for more than a shorter name.

Evan David Seigerman, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, issued a note reacting to the rebrand ahead of Capital Markets Day. “A new name, logo, and slogan must be accompanied by a true strategic change,” he wrote. The company had scheduled that meeting for September 21 in London and said it would provide details of its updated corporate strategy there, exploring The Novo Way in more detail. “Next week’s meeting must bring substance and strategic direction to support a sustainable organization into the 2030s and beyond,” Seigerman wrote.

Doustdar was set to present the new brand identity to employees the day after the public announcement, then face investors in London on the 21st.