By Stine Jacobsen, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Maggie Fick
COPENHAGEN/LONDON (Reuters) -Novo Nordisk’s top investor moved to take control of the drugmaker’s board on Tuesday, vowing a sharper focus on the key U.S. market to revive sales of blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy as Novo’s chair and six independent board members quit.
The non-profit Novo Nordisk Foundation, which combines business ownership with philanthropy, said it would propose its own chair Lars Rebien Sorensen – a former Novo CEO – to lead the Danish drugmaker’s board for the next two or three years.
Novo said current chair Helge Lund and six other independent board members would step down next month after a dispute with the foundation over the pace of change at the company.
The clash brings fresh upheaval to a company that soared to become Europe’s most valuable company last year on the huge success of Wegovy, only for its shares to plunge more than 40% this year as rival Eli Lilly grabbed market share.
FOUNDATION BACKS NEW NOVO CEO DOUSTDAR
The foundation criticised the outgoing board for being too slow to recognise shifts in the key U.S. market and too cautious on management change. It flagged a need to put more focus on the growing direct-to-consumer and mass markets.
Sorensen said that it had wanted wholesale change on Novo’s board, but backed new CEO Mike Doustdar who took over in August and has ushered in widespread job cuts and a drive to refocus the company on its key markets.
“We are fully aligned behind that,” Sorensen said in a call after the news. “We believed in the foundation board that we needed a fresh set of eyes, new energy to support management on this very important process.”
Novo said Lund and the other independent directors would step down at an extraordinary shareholder meeting on November 14 after it had been impossible to reach a “common understanding” over the make-up of the board.
The move is the latest by the foundation to increase control over Novo as it seeks to restore sales and investor confidence. It pushed for the early exit of previous CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen in May.
Sorensen played down the feud, saying in response to one question that he “preferred not to have it coined as a coup”. Instead the shift would help Novo in its key U.S. market, which he said currently had a “very transactional model”.
Novo, like many rivals, is facing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to lower drug prices.
The foundation proposed six new board members – all European, but five of them with long experience in pharmaceuticals and related industries such as biotech and health tech.
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