Novo Nordisk (NVO) CEO Mike Doustdar says that up to 1.5M patients in the U.S. could be using compounded versions of GLP-1 drugs, the popular class of weight loss drugs marketed by the company and its rival Eli Lilly (LLY).
Doustdar, who took the company’s leadership in August, added that compounders knew consumer needs better than the pharmaceutical industry initially did, allowing them to entice those who could not afford or were not willing to pay for branded GLP-1s.
“It’s not because this one-and-a-half million patients like to have unsafe, knock-off versions of our products…” Reuters reported, quoting Doustdar as saying during a panel discussion at the ongoing J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco on Monday,
“They (compounders) grabbed a part of the consumers that simply were price sensitive to the whole thing.”
The Danish drugmaker lost ~29% in value last year as the company slashed its 2025 outlook multiple times, citing, among other things, competitive pressures from Lilly (LLY) and compounded GLP-1 drugs, the unapproved low-cost versions of the branded product.
Meanwhile, Hims & Hers Health (HIMS), which markets compounded versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient of Novo’s (NVO) Wegovy, has climbed ~25% over the same period.
“There is this surprising element of a group of companies being able to pass FDA, come and sell unsafe, knock-off products in this market,” Doustdar said, adding that the company will continue to engage in legal battles against such practices.