Novo Nordisk A/S · between rebound and recalibration
The Q1 report on 6 May delivered a strong Wegovy pill launch and a raised 2026 guidance, lifting the stock around 20 per cent from its March lows, back toward the centre of a 19-house panel clustered at 305 DKK. Yet the dispersion of target share prices remains striking: Nordic and German coverage (SEB, DNB Carnegie, Handelsbanken, Berenberg) still sits at 300 to 440 DKK on Buy, while US Wall Street is concentrated at Hold with targets 232 to 290 DKK. Bernstein's 175 DKK Sell anchors the panel floor.
Snapshot as of 19 May 2026
Narrow mean, wide range
At 289 DKK the stock sits just below the panel median: 8 of 19 published share price targets are at, or below, the current share price, and 11 are above. Mean (305 DKK, +6 per cent upside) and median (295 DKK) sit modestly above the current level, indicating a panel that has converged just above the post-CagriSema spot price. The 265-DKK gap between low (Bernstein, 175 DKK) and high (SEB, 440 DKK) remains among the widest in large-cap European pharma, reflecting an unresolved split between houses that price the Wegovy pill ramp as the dominant variable and those that anchor on continued US realised-price erosion and semaglutide loss-of-exclusivity exposure.
All public price targets
Of the 30 houses on the company's IR analyst-coverage page, 19 carry public numerical targets. The post-Q1 revision cycle is uneven: four houses moved targets in the print week (SB1 Markets and Citigroup raised, HSBC raised the USD target, UBS reiterated at 332 DKK), and the remaining 15 – including the two highest panel targets at SEB and DNB Carnegie – have not republished a target since the print. BMO Capital cut its target to 232 DKK on 13 April, ahead of the Q1 release. Pre-Q1 entries are flagged in the table below.
| House | Analyst | Target | Rec. | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEB | Martin Parkhøi | 440 | Buy | pre-Q111 Dec 2025 |
| DNB Carnegie | Rune Majlund Dahl | 420 | Buy | pre-Q13 Mar |
| ABG Sundal Collier | Morten Larsen | 350 | Hold | pre-Q13 Feb |
| Handelsbanken | Mattias Häggblom | 350 | Buy | pre-Q16 Feb |
| SB1 Markets | SB1 Markets team | 350 | Buy | 11 May |
| HSBC | Rajesh Kumar | 345 | Hold | 12 May |
| UBS | Matthew Weston | 332 | Hold | 11 May |
| Nordea Markets | Nordea Markets team | 329 | Hold | pre-Q124 Feb |
| Berenberg | Kerry Holford | 300 | Buy | pre-Q112 Mar |
| BNP Paribas | Peter Verdault | 295 | Hold | pre-Q117 Apr |
| Citigroup | Graham Parry | 290 | Hold | 12 May |
| Deutsche Bank | Emmanuel Papadakis | 275 | Hold | pre-Q124 Feb |
| Barclays | James Gordon | 270 | Hold | pre-Q124 Feb |
| TD Cowen | Michael Nedelcovych | 270 | Hold | pre-Q110 Mar |
| Goldman Sachs | James Quigley | 263 | Hold | pre-Q131 Mar |
| Morgan Stanley | Thibault Boutherin | 250 | Hold | pre-Q13 Mar |
| J.P. Morgan | Richard Vosser | 250 | Hold | pre-Q124 Feb |
| BMO Capital | Evan Seigerman | 232 | Hold | pre-Q113 Apr |
| Bernstein | Justin Smith | 175 | Sell | pre-Q119 Mar |
pre-Q1 Last update precedes the Q1 2026 print on 6 May 2026; target may not reflect post-print information.
Buy · Hold · Sell
13 of 19 houses (68 per cent) carry Hold or Neutral, reflecting a panel that broadly accepts the Wegovy pill thesis but remains wary of US price compression and post-CagriSema pipeline visibility. The five Buy ratings are anchored in Nordic and German coverage (SEB, DNB Carnegie, Handelsbanken, Berenberg, SB1 Markets), arguing that the post-March valuation reset has already absorbed the price-erosion case. Bernstein's lone Sell, initiated on 19 March, remains the panel's only outright bearish call.
What drove panel revisions
- 4 Feb 2026Q4 2025 results and 2026 guidance resetNovo Nordisk reported full-year 2025 results and reset 2026 guidance to adjusted sales and operating profit growth of -5 to -13 per cent at CER. A new 12-month, 15 bn DKK share buyback programme was initiated. [1]
- 22 Feb 2026REDEFINE-4 CagriSema head-to-head misses vs ZepboundTopline results from the REDEFINE-4 trial showed CagriSema fell short of Eli Lilly's tirzepatide on the primary weight-loss endpoint, reigniting concerns about the next-generation obesity franchise. [2]
- 12 Mar 2026Berenberg cuts to 300 DKK on CagriSema outlookKerry Holford reduced from 360 DKK while maintaining the Buy rating, citing lower CagriSema sales assumptions following the REDEFINE-4 readout. [3]
- 19 Mar 2026Bernstein initiates Underperform at 175 DKKJustin Smith launched coverage with a Sell call, flagging weakening US Ozempic and Wegovy volume share, price deflation and the 2032 semaglutide compound-patent expiry as the bear case. [4]
- 6 May 2026Q1 2026 print beats; guidance raised on Wegovy pill momentumReported sales of 96.8 bn DKK and adjusted EPS of DKK 6.63 came in ahead of consensus. Wegovy pill posted 2.26 bn DKK in its first full quarter against a 1.16 bn DKK consensus, prompting management to raise 2026 guidance for both adjusted sales and operating profit. [5]
- 7 May 2026Etavopivat HIBISCUS phase III meets both co-primary endpointsThe sickle cell disease asset achieved a 27 per cent annualised reduction in vaso-occlusive crises and a 48.7 per cent haemoglobin response rate, supporting a US filing in the second half of 2026. [6]
- 11 May 2026SB1 Markets raises to 350 DKK, reiterates BuyThe Norwegian house lifted from 280 DKK on the back of stronger Wegovy pill projections, joining the post-print upward-revision cohort. [7]
- 12 May 2026Citi raises to 290 DKK; HSBC raises to USD 54Graham Parry at Citi lifted from 275 DKK on modest 2027 to 2031 earnings upgrades from higher Wegovy pill estimates, while keeping Neutral on continued portfolio price erosion. HSBC lifted to USD 54 (about 345 DKK) from USD 47. [8]
Three takeaways from the panel
Numbered sources
- Novo Nordisk Q4 2025 and full-year results, 2026 outlook
- Headline results from the REDEFINE 4 trial
- Berenberg cuts Novo Nordisk price target on Cagrisema outlook
- Bernstein initiates Novo Nordisk with Underperform, 175 DKK target
- Novo Nordisk's adjusted operating profit reached DKK 32,858 million in Q1 2026
- Etavopivat HIBISCUS phase III topline in sickle cell disease
- SB1 Markets raises Novo Nordisk target to 350 DKK from 280 DKK, reiterates Buy
- Citi raises Novo Nordisk price target to DKK 290 from DKK 275; HSBC raises to USD 54
- Novo Nordisk consensus and analyst recommendations
- Novo Nordisk IR analyst-coverage page
How the report was compiled
Consensus is compiled from publicly available target prices as of 19 May 2026 (close 288.60 DKK on Nasdaq Copenhagen on 18 May).
The underlying data is sourced from analyst houses listed on the company's IR analyst-coverage page (novonordisk.com/investors/stock-information.html), cross-referenced with the MarketScreener consensus aggregation.
Of the 30 houses on the IR list, 19 publish numeric DKK targets and are included in the numeric averages. Twelve IR-listed houses (Bank of America, Cantor, Danske Bank, Guggenheim, Intron Health, Jefferies, Jyske Bank, Kepler Cheuvreux, Morningstar, Oddo, Rothschild and Redburn, Sydbank) carry a rating but no current publicly available DKK target, or carry a fair-value estimate rather than a 12-month target, and are excluded from the numeric aggregate. SB1 Markets initiated coverage in mid-April 2026 and is not on the IR list but is included given its post-Q1 published target.
Targets last refreshed before the 6 May 2026 Q1 print are flagged in the panel table with a pre-Q1 marker.
Buy/Hold/Sell is normalised from each house's own scale: Buy/Overweight/Outperform map to Buy; Hold/Neutral/Market Perform/Equal-weight map to Hold; Sell/Underweight/Underperform map to Sell.
Market cap is computed on ~4.47 bn A+B shares including treasury; P/E is FY trailing using reported EPS for the twelve months to 31 March 2026.
The HSBC and BMO targets were originally published in USD (54 and 36 respectively) and converted to DKK at a fixing rate of 6.43 DKK/USD.
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