Novo Nordisk Shares Plunge 3.9% with 1.7B Dollar Volume Ranking 38th as Competition and Lawsuits Escalate

Novo Nordisk (NVO) closed 3.90% lower on August 6, 2025, with a trading volume of $1.71 billion, up 67.2% from the previous day and ranking 38th in market activity. The decline followed the company’s warning about ongoing competition from “unsafe and unlawful” compounded versions of its obesity drug Wegovy, which has pressured cash channel penetration despite record sales. The Danish pharmaceutical giant cut its 2025 outlook last week, citing challenges from both authorized alternatives and unregulated compounded semaglutide products.

Executives highlighted that approximately 1 million U.S. patients are using compounded GLP-1 drugs, a practice the FDA recently restricted after declaring Wegovy no longer in shortage. Novo has initiated 146 lawsuits across 40 U.S. states to combat these knockoffs, which it describes as a threat to patient safety and market stability. While Wegovy sales surged 67% year-over-year in Q2 to $3.04 billion, outpacing expectations, the broader market remains skeptical due to intensifying competition and regulatory uncertainty.

The strategy of purchasing the top 500 stocks by daily trading volume and holding them for one day delivered a 166.71% return from 2022 to the present, outperforming the benchmark return of 29.18% by 137.53%. This underscores the role of liquidity concentration in short-term stock performance, particularly in volatile markets.