By Andrew Silver
Shanghai —Novo Nordisk, as it grapples with competition from rivals.
The sales drop underscores a bleak outlook from the Danish diabetes drug giant, which shocked the market this week by flagging a potential earnings drop, ending years of double-digit gains, due to “unprecedented” price pressures.
Sales of Ozempic injector pens in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong — Novo’s largest market after the US — slipped 7% to about 5.4bn Danish kroner ($853m) in 2025.
Ozempic first won approval from China in 2021 and had, until last year, only had sales gains there, the company’s annual reports show.
But China has since approved similar drugs, including Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, Innovent Biologics’ mazdutide and Guangzhou Innogen’s efsubaglutide alfa.
Low penetration
The Innogen and Lilly medicines were added to China’s state-run health insurance scheme last month for patients with type 2 diabetes, joining Ozempic.
Another Chinese drugmaker, Sciwind Biosciences, also said last month that its type 2 diabetes treatment, Xianyida, has been approved for use in the country.
“We have a very strong market position with Ozempic, still low penetration, and I would say competition is entering more at this point in time,” Novo chief financial officer Karsten Munk Knudsen told Reuters in an interview this week.
The greater China region accounted for 14% of all 2025 sales in its international operations that exclude the US market, according to a separate investor presentation.
