NVO's Wegovy vs. LLY's Tirzepatide: Who Leads in Heart Risk Reduction?

Novo Nordisk NVO announced data from a head-to-head study evaluating the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events with Wegovy compared with Eli Lilly’s LLY tirzepatide in patients with overweight or obesity and established cardiovascular disease (CVD) without diabetes. The results from this STEER real-world study, which gathered evidence from actual patient experiences, were recently presented at a medical conference in Spain.

Per the data readout, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy demonstrated a notable advantage over Lilly’s tirzepatide in reducing cardiovascular risk among people with overweight or obesity and existing CVD. Wegovy was associated with a 57% greater reduction in the combined risk of heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular-related death, or death from any cause in patients who remained on treatment with no gaps longer than 30 days. Over an average follow-up period of 3.8 months, 15 such events (0.1%) were recorded in the Wegovy group compared with 39 events (0.4%) in the tirzepatide group, which had a 4.3-month average follow-up.

When including all treated individuals, regardless of treatment gaps, Wegovy, over an average follow-up of 8.3 months, continued to show a significant benefit, reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from any cause by 29% compared with tirzepatide over an average follow-up of 8.6 months. Additionally, patients treated with Wegovy also experienced fewer events of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular-related death than people treated with tirzepatide.

Novo Nordisk highlighted that these findings from the STEER study reinforce results from earlier studies, collectively supporting the cardiovascular benefits of Wegovy. This could boost Wegovy sales for the company. Management emphasized that semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, remains the only GLP-1 therapy with proven cardiovascular protection for people with obesity and CVD who do not have diabetes.

NVO's Competition for Wegovy in the Obesity Space

Eli Lilly is Novo Nordisk’s fierce competitor in the obesity space, which markets its tirzepatide medicines as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for obesity. Despite being on the market for less than three years, both drugs have become LLY’s key top-line drivers. Lilly has also filed regulatory applications in the EU and some other countries to seek approval for tirzepatide for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Based on positive data from a phase III cardiovascular outcome study, Lilly plans to submit global regulatory applications to support a label expansion of tirzepatide for CVD by the end of 2025.

Several other companies, like Viking Therapeutics VKTX, are also making rapid progress in the development of GLP-1-based candidates in their clinical pipeline. Recently, Viking Therapeutics started two late-stage studies evaluating the subcutaneous formulation of its investigational obesity drug, VK2735. A mid-stage study is currently ongoing, evaluating an oral version of this obesity drug, with a data readout expected later this year.

NVO’s Stock Price, Valuation & Estimates

Year to date, Novo Nordisk shares have lost 34.4% compared with the industry’s 0.6% decline. The company has also underperformed the sector and the S&P 500 during the same time frame, as seen in the chart below.

NVO Stock Underperforms the Industry, Sector & the S&P 500

Novo Nordisk is trading at a discount to the industry, as seen in the chart below. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company’s shares currently trade at 14.09 forward earnings, which is lower than 14.78 for the industry. The stock is trading much below its five-year mean of 29.25.

NVO Stock Valuation

Earnings estimates for 2025 have declined from $3.90 to $3.84 per share over the past 60 days. During the same time frame, Novo Nordisk’s 2026 earnings per share estimates have deteriorated from $4.58 to $4.09.

NVO Estimate Movement

The stock’s return on equity on a trailing 12-month basis is 78.64%, which is higher than 34.32% for the large drugmaker industry, as seen in the chart below.

NVO Return on Equity

Novo Nordisk currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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