What happened
The brightest star in the healthcare stock universe at the moment, Novo Nordisk (NVO 0.84%), enjoyed a nearly 2% bump in its share price on Friday. This followed an encouraging guidance update from the developer of white-hot drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. The stock's rise contrasted positively with the performance of the S&P 500 index, which fell by 0.5% on the day.
So what
Before market open, Novo Nordisk published its business update. For the entirety of 2023, the pharmaceutical company believes its sales will grow by 32% to 38% over the 2022 tally. Previously, it was guiding for improvement of 27% to 33%.
Novo Nordisk also proffered fresh guidance for growth in operating profit. It is now forecasting 40% to 46% growth, well up from the preceding estimate of 31% to 37%. The company did not provide any bottom-line forecasts.
This was hardly surprising for any investor tracking the fortunes of Novo Nordisk. Wegovy and Ozempic -- medicines approved for different afflictions but based on the same molecule, semaglutide -- are the "it" drugs these days because of their weight-shedding properties. The company said its guidance adjustments were primarily due to better-than-anticipated sales volumes for the two drugs.
Now what
In its press release detailing the new guidance, Novo Nordisk also provided trailing sales and operating profit growth figures. These are useful for keeping up with the sharply rising trajectory of Wegovy and Ozempic. For the first nine months of this year sales were 33% higher on a year-over-year basis, and operating profit was 37% better.
