Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Karsten Munk Knudsen: Yes. Hi, Mark. So as to Wegovy and CMO filling, what I can say is that that we are on track with what we previously communicated with the three CMO lines. We don’t think it’s prudent to continue to specify number of lines and locations and potential CMOs just to say that we’ll continue to expand capacities in the years to come given the significant unmet need we’re seeing. So unfortunately, then you’ll have to impute from our guidance into our scalability how we are scaling our supply.

Martin Lange: And specifically on the cardiovascular benefits of our pipeline products vis-à-vis semaglutide, what we, for example, know from CagriSema, right now we have to rely on biomarkers, is that CagriSema is obviously superior on body weight or has the potential to be superior on glycemic control, but also will be superior on, for example, blood pressure lowering, lipid lowering, and potentially all the very relevant cardiovascular biomarkers. All of that gives us a lot of confidence in that CagriSema will be associated with a quite profound benefit in the cardiovascular space. But obviously, we have to show that in phase 3. And as you know, we are currently running the redefined free storage to that effect.

Daniel Bohsen: Thank you, Martin, and thank you, Mark. So we’ll have time for two more set of questions if they are kept brief. So let’s try to squeeze that in.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Richard Parkes from BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead.

Richard Parkes: Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I’ll be quick, both on sort of guidance capacity. I think through last year, you consistently stated that the top end of guidance wasn’t necessarily a magic ceiling in terms of what you had capacity to manufacture. I wonder if that’s still the case in 2024 or whether the rather range suggests you’ve been more bullish with the top end. And then just to put you a bit more on sort of capacity expansion plans, I mean, you’ve been quite clear about fill finish expansion for Wegovy, but my understanding is with FlexTouch, it’s all about optimizing what you already have. So is there any way points that you can give for investors around when you might be able to move from seeing more of an inflection around that rather than just optimizing the cost that you currently have? Thank you.

Daniel Bohsen: Karsten, over to you.

Karsten Munk Knudsen: Yes. So thanks, Richard, for those questions. So as to the guidance range, then it’s important to reiterate, this is the most realistic outlook that we’re providing to the markets. So had we thought that we could grow faster than this realistically then we wouldn’t have been providing this guidance at this point in time. So this is what you should expect on and as a normal distribution, then expect something around the mid of the range. That’s how we work on this. And then it’s important to note that being in a supply constraint environment, then it’s very important for us in order to manage our business in a sustainable way that that we focus on our supply chain and ensure that it’s resilient. So we don’t get into some of the bumps that we saw in the past with the stop-go type decisions.

So it’s important that we have a sustainable supply chain. So that factors in also, so most likely range. And of course, our job is to run the company in the best possible manner. And that entails driving a top-line growth as well as having a resilient supply chain set up. Then as to scaling of FlexTouch, which you can say entails both the cartridge filling as simply unpack, I can only say that that we’re scaling all of those on an ongoing basis. So we have active projects in each of these areas. We don’t want to get into details externally around the project plans and so on. But I would point you to our recently announced expansion in Chartres of some 16 billion DKK projects taps directly into expanding that pipeline as just as an example of a significant CapEx project to that extent.

Daniel Bohsen: Thank you, Richard, for the question. Thank you, Karsten. And we’ll take one final question.

Operator: Thank you. One moment, please. The final question comes from the line of Michael Novod from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Michael Novod: Thank you very much. Two brief questions. So, first of all, on oral amycretin, so you previously have been saying that the ambition was to sort of create an oral CagriSema. Is that still sort of the ambition given all the other questions we’ve had on oral amycretin? And then secondly, on the program that Lilly did on LillyDirect for sort of direct-to-consumer more or less, is that something that Novo is considering as well, given there could be sort of a significant untapped potential in the private market? Thanks.