Denmark Doubles Its Growth Forecast on Novo Nordisk's US Boom, Days After Novo's Own Stock Got Hammered

Denmark's central bank just told the world its economy is booming. Novo Nordisk's investors aren't so sure.

Danmarks Nationalbank released a special report this week doubling its 2026 growth forecast for the Danish economy, from 1.8% to 4%. The bank credited "extraordinary" growth in the pharmaceutical sector, driven almost entirely by Novo Nordisk's sales and production in the United States.

The bank raised its 2027 forecast too, from 1.8% to 2.3%, and held 2028 at 2%. Back in March, pharma wasn't even a line item in the outlook.

The Trump deal behind the numbers

The growth traces to a specific policy change. The White House announced last year it had secured "advanced most-favored nation" pricing from Novo Nordisk, opening up lower prices for Medicare patients and TrumpRx customers. A month later, the FDA approved Novo's Wegovy pill, the first oral GLP-1 drug of its kind to clear U.S. regulators.

The Nationalbank's report states plainly: "The growth is mainly due to Novo's sales and production in the U.S. market at the beginning of this year. This reflects Novo's agreement with the U.S. administration, which, from the turn of the year, has, among other things, provided access to a larger patient base through public health insurance schemes."

That's a bigger customer base for Novo, courtesy of Medicare access, feeding straight into Denmark's export numbers.

The catch: Danes aren't the ones cashing in

The Nationalbank's own report notes that an increasing share of Novo's production is happening abroad, under Danish corporate ownership but not on Danish soil. Danmarks Nationalbank Governor Christian Kettel Thomsen said, "The Danish economy has so far defied the global turmoil. We expect strong GDP growth this year." But the growth counted in GDP doesn't necessarily translate into paychecks or investment inside Denmark itself, since so much of the actual manufacturing is happening in the U.S.

Other Danish coverage of the same report, summarized by aggregator Ground News, went further. The Nationalbank reportedly warned the Danish government directly not to loosen fiscal policy in response to the surge, given that so much of the boom is tied to one company's overseas operations rather than a broad-based domestic expansion. A forecast built on a single drugmaker's American sales is not the same thing as diversified national growth, and a central bank saying so about its own numbers carries weight.

Meanwhile, Novo's own stock got crushed

The same week the Nationalbank published its rosy outlook, Novo Nordisk shares were getting pummeled in the opposite direction.

On September 21, Novo stock fell more than 7% in pre-market trading after the company's Wegovy tablet sales came in at 3.22 billion Danish kroner (about $494 million), missing the 3.27 billion kroner analysts expected, according to TradingKey. Novo did raise its full-year guidance, trimming its expected sales and profit decline from as much as 12% to around 6%. Investors shrugged that off and focused on the miss.

Later that same day, at Novo's capital markets day in London, executives faced what Reuters described as tough questioning from analysts over pricing power and dealmaking strategy. Shares slid as much as 9% intraday before recovering to trade down about 4.4% by 12:46 GMT, according to Reuters reporting carried by Global Banking and Finance Review.

CEO Mike Doustdar told the room Novo aims to launch more than five blockbuster drugs by 2030 and deliver over 150 billion Danish kroner ($23 billion) in pipeline sales by 2035. Analysts weren't impressed. Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Union Investment, told Reuters the 2030 sales outlook and margin targets failed to move him, though he credited Novo with making "a credible case for its next-generation obesity drugs and broad early pipeline." BMO analyst Evan Seigerman said the guided 3.6% revenue growth was already priced in, putting the "burden of proof" on management to actually execute.

The core worry is semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, which loses patent exclusivity in the early 2030s. Manns noted Novo "did not say much in terms of how to tackle the semaglutide patent expiration in 2032." Novo shares have already fallen more than 70% from the record highs they hit after Wegovy's 2021 launch, as Eli Lilly's rival drug Zepbound closes in, on track to outsell Wegovy by as much as $7 billion this year, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters.

Novo has also been cutting deep. The company disclosed that staff departures have reached 13,000, following an initial round of 9,000 layoffs and 4,000 subsequent exits, part of a cost-cutting push that began last year.

Two forecasts, one company

Denmark's growth number and Novo's stock price are measuring different things. One is a GDP forecast built on trade and production data, the other is a market bet on future earnings past a 2032 patent cliff. They can both be true at once.

But the disconnect raises an obvious question for Copenhagen: what happens to that 4% growth forecast if Wall Street's skepticism about Novo's post-patent future proves right? The Nationalbank's own report already flags the risk. It just didn't put a number on it.