Hardly for the first time in recent weeks and months, Novo Nordisk (NVO -0.56%) had a good trading session on the stock market Monday. The company's shares enjoyed a more than 2% boost on the day, comparing favorably to the 0.9% rise of the S&P 500 index. Investors were cheered by the fact that the Denmark-based pharmaceutical upstart is maintaining its stock repurchase program.
Stock buyback program update
Novo Nordisk said in a brief update that it had purchased 207,000 of its Copenhagen-listed B shares during the five trading days last week. The average price landed between 863.83 Danish kronor ($123.35) and 881.64 kronor ($125.90) per share.
The pharmaceutical company's repurchase initiative was launched in early February, and its duration is one year. Including last week's totals, the company has bought just over 2.13 million of its own shares for a total spend of more than 1.8 billion kronor ($257 million). The repurchase authorization was for up to 20 billion kronor ($2.9 billion) worth of stock.
Novo Nordisk also updated its tally for the number of shares it now holds. This is nearly 48.7 million, or slightly over 1% of the number of its A and B shares combined.
Not particularly necessary, but welcome
Novo Nordisk is the company behind the wildly successful and high-profile medications Wegovy and Ozempic, which target weight loss and diabetes, respectively. Given that level of popularity and its effect on the company's share price, at this point it probably doesn't need the boost a stock buyback program often provides. Still, it helps keep investors sweet and might help support the shares if the company goes through a bad patch.
