Name: Novo Nordisk loses bidding war with Pfizer – what happens next?
Uploaded: 2025-11-10T15:14:43.471Z
Duration: 6 min 12 s
Description: Novo Nordisk lost an intense bidding war against Pfizer for U.S. biotech firm Metsera. CNBC takes a look at what the options are for the Danish pharma group going forward.

Novo Nordisk lost an intense bidding war against Pfizer for U.S. biotech firm Metsera. CNBC takes a look at what the options are for the Danish pharma group going forward.

Copenhagen

Novo Nordisk has been outbid by Pfizer in a $10 billion contest to acquire Medcera, a developer of obesity drugs. Medcera accepted Pfizer's offer, citing antitrust concerns raised by U.S. regulators regarding Novo Nordisk's bid as the key reason for their decision. 

The failed acquisition is seen as a setback for Novo Nordisk's new CEO, who has been pursuing aggressive mergers and acquisitions to strengthen the company's position in the competitive obesity drug market. Despite this loss, Novo Nordisk remains focused on expanding its pipeline, including recent acquisitions and ongoing development of new obesity treatments.

Novo Nordisk loses bidding war with Pfizer – what happens next?

Novo Nordisk, the company, has lost a $10 billion bidding war to Pfizer for obesity drug developer Medcera, ending a saga between the rival pharma giants. Medcera accepted Pfizer's sweetened offer on Friday, citing antitrust concerns raised by the U.S. competition Watchdog in Novo Nordisk's offer as the deciding factor here. But let's take a look at what actually has been happening. So Pfizer and Medcera announced acquisition plans back in late September with a deal worth nearly $5 billion. Novo Nordisk then submitted a competing unsolicited offer in late October, hiking its bid to at least $6.5 billion. Pfizer sued both Medcera and the Danish drugmaker the next day for a breach of its original merger agreement. This didn't stop Novo Nordisk from raising its offer in November, sparking a rapid fire bidding war last week, with the U.S. pharma giant ultimately coming out on top. Charlotte is joining us with more on this story. Charlotte, there were a lot of conversations about whether Novo Nordisk was going to get to this deal. A lot of antitrust competition concerns here too. Walk us through the implications for Novo, given that they didn't manage to get this deal done. Yeah, certainly very first, very public setback for the new CEO that we know has been a job only for 13 weeks, you know, and we know the challenges that the company had been facing. Certainly, they had a first mover advantage when it comes to anti-obesity, but certainly now they are facing very strong competition from Eli Lilly, so they have to position themselves for the future. And M&A is one way for them to potentially strengthen their pipeline. And we know it has already, the new CEO, Mark Dostar, started with a restructuring plan, has done some M&A, and certainly crashing that Pfizer M&A party last week was a key challenge and one that hasn't been successful, but certainly looks like, you know, for Pfizer, they don't have a foot yet in the obesity race, where we know, of course, it's different for Novo Nordisk. So it was a different position for both of them. Certainly now we know that Pfizer did match that offer, that the Sweden offer that Novo Nordisk made, but it seems that the regulatory aspect was key on this front. And we know that Metsera mentioned in that statement that they have received a call from the regulator in the U.S. talking about the risk that would be attached to accepting the Novo Nordisk offer. So when I had a chance to catch up with the CEO last week in Copenhagen, we talked about the pipeline of Novo Nordisk and those regulatory risks. We have huge confidence in our own pipeline. We have some of the best pipeline in this industry. But when your ambition is large, when you're thinking about hundreds of millions of people that are still have an unmet need and not treated, then no pipeline is good enough. We have been looking at Metsera for a long time, and they have some of the best complementary drugs to our own pipeline. And we look very much forward, if we can acquire them, to integrate that into our own pipeline so we can actually go broad and expand the market even more so. Are you ready to increase your bid, potentially, or have you gone as far as... I will not be able to give comments on my bidding, but I will say that I'm very excited about acquiring Metsera. There is a big antitrust risk, though. A lot of analysts say there's actually very low chance that this takeover would be allowed. I would disagree. I would say we would not have gotten into this deal if we did not feel confident that we would be able to close it. So in an interview over the weekend, Novo Nordisk said they will double down on their strength, which is obesity. They very much continue to work on that front, so obesity and comorbidities. They already make some M&A on that front. They bought Akero in early October, $5 billion. They bought the rights to a drug from Omero for $2 billion, so are spending money already there. So certainly, you know, it hasn't worked out with Metsera, but it's extraordinary, Metsera, because it was founded only three years ago. Just 100 employees. They don't have any drugs out there. The most advanced drug that they have is a monthly injection. It's only in phase two. So it's a big gamble as well. It would have been a big risk. It is a very promising pipeline, according to many analysts, but, you know, it is a big gamble as well. So maybe for Novo Nordisk, maybe long term, potentially a good luck moment. We don't know, but we'll have to wait and see, but certainly the situation between Novo Nordisk, they already have anti-obesity drugs and comorbidities drugs as well in the pipeline, unlike Pfizer. You know, for Pfizer, it was more of a make or break moment in that sense, in that battle between them. But certainly a bit of a public setback for the new CEO, but, you know, they had been very clear that they are going to be very aggressive, and maybe this was a symbolic move there, the move on Medsera, that they would be very aggressive when it comes to M&A, and when it comes to taking risks to kind of try to regain some pace in that race in the anti-obesity market in the US. Novo has been very focused on anti-obesity and just diabetes market, and even the previous CEO was highlighting that very much in terms of the outlook for this company. But as we see more pressure and more competitors in the weight loss drug market, is Novo going to be forced to look at other alternatives here? What did the CEO say in terms of what's next and what are the alternatives for Novo? Yeah, well, they're working and they know there's still a huge untapped demand when it comes to anti-obesity, particularly in the US market, but in other areas as well. So they're working on what would be the next best drug, and we know that the pill might be coming next week, because for the moment it's injections. So there's still a hurdle to access to a certain extent. So the pill, they have a pill that should be approved early next year for them. And so that would be a massive step for them, because here again, they have a first mover advantage. We know that the Eli Lilly pill is also being looked at, but will be approved later in the year. So you know that this is a crucial moment, but they're looking at other areas where that could work. And again, Medsera have a monthly injection rather than a weekly one, as it is now. So there's all these things that they're looking at. And certainly they're also, as you were saying, looking at all the comorbidities around obesity. So there's a huge area of research that they're working on that they want to beef up their pipeline on around all these areas as well.

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