Yesterday, Novo Nordisk was in the news because its stock was down due to some concerns its long-term prospects didn't really warrant a high share price. Pfizer had put a real damper on enthusiasm for the company after it released details of a new pact to develop biosimilar insulin products with Biocon. This morning, however, analysts had a distinctly rosy view of Novo's position in the diabetes marketplace, helping to push shares back up as investors got a chance to sink their teeth into the news about Bydureon's latest woes at the FDA.
At the beginning of this year Novo got a chance to start selling its new diabetes therapy Victoza. And Bydureon's delay of 20 months or more gives it plenty of time to get the drug established as a blockbuster.
"We continue to see Bydureon as a very strong rival to Victoza," Rune Majlund Dahl, an analyst at Sydbank, noted yesterday. "We think the market is underestimating the market share that Bydureon can get from the GLP-1 market."
But that was before the announcement of Bydureon's CRL from the agency. Novo shares surged more than eight percent on the news, the biggest gain in more than two years.
- here's the report from Bloomberg